The Sibling Equation
by WilliamSSHolmes
Summary: AU in which Sherlock and Mycroft are joined by their younger sister. Even after almost three decades of practice, the boys have yet to master the fine art of being big brothers.
1. Old Feuds and New Beginnings

Sherlock Holmes had found himself completely entangled in Irene Adler's web.

The cab journey from Battersea to Baker Street had given him time to reflect on what he had heard, and indeed, what he had not at all expected to see. It took someone exceptional to shock the world's only consulting detective. It took someone even better to deceive him.

He threw a note at the cabbie, muttering something about 'keeping the change'. Pushing open the door to Baker Street, it became immediately clear that something was wrong: his den had been corrupted. The scuff marks on the wall, the discarded cleaning products and the traces of pink nail varnish gave the story a narrative. All of a sudden, Sherlock had to act - the woman was no longer clouding his vision.

The wooden hills were conquered in just a few brisk paces. Up on spotting his curly locks, Mrs Hudson broke the silence. "Sherlock, Oh Sherlock" she sniffled.

Even the shaking frame of his landlady did not cause his icy exterior to melt.

"Don't snivel, Mrs Hudson, it'll do nothing to impede the flight of a bullet." He now addressed the rest of his audience, looking at Neilson in particular. "What a tender world that would b-"

"There's nothing in the bedroom either." the voice, caked in nonchalance, revealed itself before it's owner did.

 _It takes someone exceptional to shock the world's only consulting detective._ Sherlock whipped his head around, for a moment forgetting that he had a potential fight on his hands. Confusion struck him, widening his eyes and leaving him in suspended animation, his jaw dropped like a cartoon character.

It was this rare expression that greeted Faylinn Holmes as she strolled in to the living room. It was a pleasant surprise - one that in another time or place, she would have savoured or possibly taken a souvenir photograph of. The youngest Holmes allowed a smirk to flirt on her lips, before resuming the professional, bland expression she had been accustomed to. Neilson nodded in response to her search results.

Her brother too, had regained some composure and threw her a questioning, somewhat disproving look. The siblings had a wavelength of their own and were immediately tuned in to each other's movements.

She perched on the arm of the sofa, ready to watch the scene unfold. It was at this point that Sherlock returned to his standoff, resigned to the fact that he would have to turn his back on the unexpected arrival. She could wait. For now.

* * *

Aware that everyone else was too busy cleaning up the aftermath of her brother's created crime scene, Faylinn ascended the stairs with undetected ease. She carefully selected her seat, choosing a step part way up the seventeen on offer in 221 Baker Street - here she would wait for Sherlock to return. But as the blue lights dissipated and the sirens whizzed and faded in to the London night, it became apparent that the awaited arrival had chosen the back door.

When he did finally make an appearance - coat billowing out to the side like a cape in the wind - he was greeted by a scene that he assumed had been deleted for good. The same girl, folded to squeeze on to two steps, had her back turned on the banister with her head propped up by her hands. All childlike optimism was depleted, however, replaced by a hardened, world-wise armour. His reunion began with a sharp stare and a raise of an eyebrow. It was hard to know where to begin...

Both seemed to wait for the other to initiate a conversation. The task landed with the elder of the two.

"What the bloody hell was that about?" Interaction over the past few years had come few and far between, making pleasantries or comments about the weather positively unnecessary. The Holmes family had never much cared for niceties anyway.

"I suppose I could ask you the same thing."

He snorted, ignoring her comment."You just waltz in to my living room and expect not to be confronted about it? What happened?"

"Nothing happened. Are you telling me I can't come back without a reason?" Faylinn snapped. Sherlock looked at her disapprovingly. Her reply was too quick, too defensive for his liking. He picked this up, seizing it and running with it.

"You could. But you wouldn't. Anyway, you left in a rush. No time to freshen up after the flight- it's not like you to not to be wearing makeup **.** You haven't even been debriefed. Now from what I believe, the security service isn't slacking that badly s-"

"Sherlock. I haven't been debriefed because the man you threw - _repeatedly_ threw out of a second storey window was in fact the man charged with the responsibility of debriefing me." Her words were calm, but as a revolt of anger bubbled over, she ended up being significantly louder than originally intended.

Sherlock's lips moulded in to the rounded shape of an 'o' as he contemplated this statement. He had numerous questions surrounding this unexplained alliance with the Americans, but was not yet willing to leave his previous train of thought...

"Don't even get me started on those dark circles under your eyes. You haven't slept for three, no four days, but it's not as if you haven't had the time; you could have slept for hours on the plane as I presume you were flying business class? So something's been _keeping_ you awake, something on your mind."

"Sherlock."

"No doubt that it's the very same thing that's caused you to lose your appetite. You clearly haven't eaten for days either. Plus there are creases in those clothes that have the potential to make Mycroft physically ill." he sniggered at this, before pulling his features back in to the traditional almost scowl. "Bolivia hasn't been treating you well then, sister dear?"

Almost immediately, he knew he had hit a nerve; she shuffled in her seat, not gracing him with the privilege of eye contact. Having said that, the detective was more than used to people becoming agitated as he spoke.

"I did not come here to be deduced."

"Then why, may I ask, have you come? To beat up my landlady, perhaps? I have to admit, it is a rather poor revenge strategy. I would expect better from you, I really would." Again, his own comments were his downfall, as they triggered a laugh that made a successful bid for freedom. He allowed it to last for longer than good etiquette allowed, running his palm through his inky curls as he chuckled.

In response, Faylinn widened her eyes, boring and drilling even further in to her brother's skull. _Did he really think this was a laughing matter?_ Sherlock's sense of humour had always been notoriously twisted, but this really wasn't the time. She raised her voice, cutting in to the now dying snickers and reinstating the considerably more adult conversation that she had hoped for.

"You can't possibly think that this was my 'strategy', can you? Attacking old ladies isn't my idea of fun, you know." she said, spitting out the syllables as if they were leaving a bitter taste in her mouth.

Her comment killed off the already weak conversation. A silence blanketed them, punctuated only by the ticking of the clock in the hall. It was at this point that Faylinn paused to notice the domesticity of it all - the Christmas lights tracing the mantelpiece upstairs, the tinsel framing the mirror and the freshly washed bedding had not escaped her notice. This allowed a seed of doubt to be planted within the woman's mind. It now seemed appropriate to question just how well she knew her big brother.

"You er... You never answered my question. What happened?" he asked, attempting to sound softer than before. Perhaps he knew that he had overstepped the mark.

"You can deduce. I think you already know." Again, she was blunt. It was inevitable that landing in England would bring on an onslaught of questions, but Sherlock was not the ideal, or indeed the expected interrogator. It was more of a role she had envisaged Mycroft taking on.

"Don't be absurd. How could I possibly deduce the events of the last two years?"

Mocking surprise, the younger Holmes searched her surroundings, perhaps looking for someone to confirm that her ears were not deceiving her. _Was... Was that the Sherlock Holmes admitting that he is not intellectually capable of something?_ Surely not. He, meanwhile, stood as an onlooker to the ironic performance, seemingly allowing Faylinn her turn in the spotlight before he waded in once more.

"It happens to be a perfectly reasonable question to ask. In fact, I assume it will be one that you will be confronted with many more times in the next 24 hours. Mycroft in particular will be itching to hear about your antics, don't you think?"

Faylinn rolled her eyes. "You say that as if he won't already know about them." The blatant espionage from Mycroft had come to be a uniting factor for the two youngest siblings; it was almost impossible to ignore (no matter how many times Sherlock had rewired or shot at the cameras he had sniffed out) so had to be embraced. After years of trying and failing, rebelling against the omniscient civil servant now seemed futile.

"Listen, you came here, meaning I get to ask the questions first."

"I highly doubt that the answers would be of any interest to you." she replied dismissively.

Finally weary of her position, she stood up, now having to look down to look her brother in the eye. Despite this indication that his visitor intended to leave, Sherlock stood as a partition. He seemed intent on getting the answers he craved.

"How could you possibly know without hearing the questions? " He let her settle on her feet. "For example, one of my many enquiries surrounds a certain advisor at GCHQ. I'd be interested to hear about your correspondence with him." With this, Faylinn visibly seethed - her fingers subconsciously formed fists as she let out a deep breath to restrain herself.

"My personal affairs are _especially_ none of your business." she spat. Pushing past the wall of black wool tweed, she made a grab for the handle of her handbag. Without so much as a glance back, she pulled open the door.

Agreeing to come to Baker Street had been a mistake.

 **Thank you so much for reading! Hopefully chapter 2 will be uploaded tomorrow...**


	2. Kindness and Kidnappings

**Apologies for updating a day late... Chapters will be uploaded every Sunday from now on!**

 **Just to ensure that everyone is on the same page, Faylinn is five years younger than Sherlock and therefore twelve years younger than Mycroft.**

 **Enjoy!**

The cool London air snapped at her nose and bare arms as she surveyed the scene from the doorstep. Cars were scattered along Baker Street, a couple of which were crowned with royal blue flashing lights.

Leaving the door shuddering in protest behind her, Faylinn was left with no distraction to replace the nagging sensations encircling her head. With twitching fingers, she immediately sourced the much-needed cigarette. After a rummage through her heaving hand luggage, a lighter was also located. She allowed auto pilot to take over, heading away from the gaggle of police officers that had convened under the red awning of Speedy's.

Her wide, confident gait faltered as she balanced the black leather bag in the crook of her arm and struggled to create a flame; being so close to relief made her desperate, almost frantic.

"Christ, don't tell me you're smoking..."

She stopped, realising that the voice stemmed from the very group she had tried to avoid. Greg Lestrade, his hands tucked in to his coat pockets as a shield from the cold, broke away from the semi circle and bridged the gap between his colleagues and the young woman. The grin worn on his face was evident in his tone.

Resigned , she closed her eyes and drew in the cold air through her nose. She allowed the breath to escape her as she turned, creating small clouds that condensed and curled above her head. Exasperated, she simply nodded her head. There were so many comments that formulated in her mind, ranging from ' _Don't pretend you don't want one too. How many patches is it today?'_ to the incredibly childish but all too satisfying option of simply repeating the statement in a mocking tone. She had to be fair though - Greg was probably only trying to be friendly.

Faylinn waited for Greg's next conversational advance; she was unable to trust herself to say much more without becoming explosive. If she didn't get that cigarette soon there would be even more paperwork to file...

Lestrade, meanwhile, visibly receded. He didn't need his HR training to know when he'd touched a nerve. About to speak again, he was left with his jaw dropped as one of his colleagues approached the pair. The man was in uniform, so was clearly in a lower rank than Greg and carried a small hand held sound recorder - it didn't take the brain of a Holmes to know what he was after.

"Excuse me? There was an incid-"

"No, I didn't see anything so no, I will not be giving you a statement. I suggest you return to your friends, as I would imagine that your cappuccino is going cold. They also seem to be discussing your recent divorce." Faylinn stated, ensuring that her stony expression backed up her words. What? Deductions could have their uses.

The constable looked dejected, but realisation washed over him as he properly absorbed the young woman's words.

"How do y-" he stuttered, now intrigued, if not a tiny bit scared.

"Just go." Lestrade intercepted. He pinched the bridge of his nose, waving off the man next to him.

Greg showed his disapproval with a series of facial expressions, all of which were very familiar to the youngest Holmes, yet this particular offering seemed rather dilute compared to what Mycroft had dished up in the past.

With a continued nonchalance, she proceeded to light the cigarette that had been fidgeting in between her fingertips. The detective inspector couldn't help but smirk at this - for a copper he really wasn't the most effective disciplinarian. He had a perhaps unrequited desire to go down as the 'fun parent' or the 'fun uncle' and this seemed to extend to a certain member of Sherlock's family.

The young woman smiled back at him as she took her first drag; the original intention of staging a dramatic exit was floundering in the fumes that inhabited her lungs. This particular nicotine fix was one to be savoured. It was becoming increasingly difficult to dislike Lestrade. His disturbance, which now appeared to be light hearted, had considerably reduced the impact of her departure, yet somehow it didn't matter.

Mycroft would have been organising a firing squad by now, so Greg seemed to be a happy middle. Not too oppressive, but he cared enough to make the smoking seem naughty. He put on a look of mock distain.

"You're bloody hard work, you are."

* * *

The palm of his hand ran over his facial features. He jammed the phone in to his cheek bones, drumming his fingers on the banister as he waited. He failed to wait for a greeting...

"Mycroft?"

"Sherlock. What do you want this time?" Offence tainted the younger brother's features as he recalled the last time he had asked for a favour. Having established that it was more than 24 hours ago, Sherlock came to the conclusion that Mycroft was simply having trouble with that funny little power complex of his.

"Our darling sister has made an appearance at Baker Street." he replied, pacing and advancing up the stairs.

"Yes. Please do try to keep up, brother mine. I am already dealing with it."

On hearing this, Sherlock hung up. He reached the landing, encountering John, who seemed to have an infinite number of questions. One that particularly stood out in Sherlock's mind was about the 'woman with the long black hair'.

* * *

The crowd of hi-visibility jackets and body armour erupted with laughter. Greg spun around in a desperate attempt to catch up on the joke . The laughter somehow caught her off guard, unbalancing and irritating her skin - it wasn't that she was against the humour, more opposed to the fact that she was alienated from the punch line. A deer in headlights, she briefly considered the irresistibly simple option of running. That was until the odd gathering outside Speedy's fell silent. Every member stared down at one individual's iPhone as if it were an alien being until one brave soul looked across to Faylinn, saying "Excuse me? I...I think it's for you..."

Mycroft Holmes entered his office to find that his visitor had taken a few liberties to make themselves at home: his decanter was left without a top, books on the bookcase had evidently been picked up, flicked through and then replaced; there was strong evidence of high heeled shoes having walked on his rug.

"I can't believe you kidnapped me."

Mycroft half-smiled as he strode around to the opposite side of the desk. from here, he could get a good look at his little sister. Almost able to see Sherlock's smirk, he was forced to censor his immediate thoughts about the lack of ironing that had clearly taken place in South America.

"Kidnapped is rather a strong word, don't you think? I might encourage you to use the word commandeered. Much less sinister." He placed the decorative cap back on to the bottle of whiskey (only after pouring himself some). "Besides, you are free to go at any time."

Confused, Faylinn uncrossed her arms and used the arms of the chair for support. She was hovering half way out of her seat when the man across from her interjected.

"But... I don't think you will..."

Somehow her invitation to leave had been vetoed within seconds, so Faylinn dropped her weight back down. She waited, fixing her gaze straight ahead, finding herself staring in to the eyes of The Queen. It did not surprise Faylinn one bit that Mycroft worked with the monarch watching over his shoulder. How _patriotic_.

"I am correct in saying that your job is important to you, yes?" Despite posing the question, Mycroft pretty much knew the answer already. His little sister had her career planned out since she could first solve her first Caesar ciphers; she ate, slept and breathed the secret intelligence service. Her presence alone told him a lot.

"Of course."

He cleared his throat. "Both of them?" This time, he looked her directly in the eye - his stare acted as a lie detector test.

Her only response was a nod. This one was not a subtle Holmes gesture, but an overstated one, emphasised by the creased frown on her face. _Where was he going with this?_ She wanted to escape, so the conversation had to progress...

"I am obviously committed to my job. Now, please rush to your preferred conclusions and be done with it." Looking directly in to his eyes, she hoped to end with more venom than she perhaps started with. Even a simple mention of her employment was enough to make her heart race.

"My dear, I have no conclusions to jump to. All I have is advice." Upon noticing the questionable look he was receiving, he cleared his throat. "...Brotherly Advice... I would strongly recommend that you go in there and _beg_ for your job back."

"I haven't even lost it yet!"

"It's only a matter of time."

She attempted to speak over him, succeeding in interrupting him but not in getting her point across: "I was doing what was right!" He simply continued.

"Evidently not! Otherwise, I wouldn't be sitting here trying to cover up the fact that my very own sister has cost the intelligence service millions and possibly even agents their lives!"

Her disgust was evident immediately; there was no denying that she was not in a good position, but the idea that Mycroft of all people was questioning her honest objectives was not an easy one to digest.

"If I was such a liability, then why did you let me go? Gloucester was the perfect solution for you - I couldn't cause many problems when I was doing maths all day could I? " Faylinn was now moving in to dangerous but familiar territory - being babied from a distance was not something that she welcomed at all. She gulped down another mouthful of drink, doing it loudly, knowing that her brother would disprove.

"What reason had I got to deny you a promotion? Just because I hate legwork, it doesn't mean I should inflict paperwork on others. Besides, I was told you were good." The sentiment that he tried so hard to suppress told him that he was being too harsh. His usually impenetrable sense of logic, however, told him that he was being a necessary evil. Again, Faylinn was unable to disguise her offence.

"I _am_ good."

"I have evidence that would prove otherwise. How ever much you might like to protest, even you must accept that you overstepped the mark." Mycroft spoke with an unnerving sense of calm, even if his mind was spinning at one hundred miles an hour.

"I did what thought was necessary. No more, no less. I knew what I was doing, Mycroft." She got up to leave, but was stopped in the doorway by Mycroft's last warning:

"The enquiry. I will have no influence over it. It's up to you to clear up your own mess -you've always said you can do it on your own, so this should be no exception."


	3. Backstreets and Bathroom Floors

**Warning: This chapter contains a description of an anxiety attack.**

The radio needed tuning, but it didn't matter - the white noise let her think. Her fingers tapped impatiently on the steering wheel in a fast and nimble rhythm that years of piano playing and typing had allowed for.

 _The papers were signed, the decision was final._

 _No more fieldwork. That was to be expected, as it was a standard punishment for disgraced agents. She could return to GCHQ and be the big fish in a small pond. What was hard to deal with was the humiliation; as she was often told, the people who climb the highest have the furthest to fall._

A car horn bought her back to the road, where the lights had now turned green. Quickly realising her mistake, Faylinn accelerated, embarrassed despite the fact no one was really there to see.

The enquiry had concluded in the late evening. It was now as dark as it could get in Central London - street lights gave even the gloomiest of winter nights a luminous orange tinge. The view out of the windscreen left Faylinn wondering how her brothers were able to see so much beauty in the city. Even at a quiet hour such as this, when the tourists had abandoned the landmarks and commuters had abandoned their offices, the pollution was stifling.

Allowing her mind to drift, she drove without concentrating on her route.

 _She had been through a lot to get herself to Bolivia. It all culminated in being used as an object to be carried on a man's arm; that was not a role she could allow herself to play. She cut the strings and did what needed to be done. Morals came first, no matter what the latest brief had said._

 _She was accomplished - one of the best cryptographers of her generation- but it seemed the whole of the intelligence world had quickly forgotten that. Now, she was left feeling like a scolded child who had meddled with the controls._

Her heart was racing. A pedestrian stepped out in to the road, giving Faylinn just seconds to react. The woman, a similar age to the youngest Holmes, already seemed unnerved by the darkness that had descended on the back streets of the capital. She looked at Faylinn with her eyes wide, clearly in a state of shock. This was, of course understandable, considering that the number plate of the Audi was now just a few feet away from her knees.

"Oh...Oh God I'm sorry! Sorry!" Faylinn mirrored the stranger's horror. She held her hands up, surrendering to the fact that blame lay with her.

After gathering herself, the woman ran from the centre of the road and found refuge at the curb. She straightened her coat and continued with her walk.

Shaken, the driver gripped the steering wheel hard, her knuckles turning paler and paler. She found herself unable to move on. The pressure being exerted on her palms now seemed too much to bear; she collapsed back in to the seat, running her hand through her hair.

She forgot to blink and for a minute, all she could do was sit. The radio had finally settled on a station and jingles could just about be heard under the crackle and scratches. Her hand fumbled for the off switch, which it eventually found, leaving her with just the noise of the engine to contend with. Her mind was whirring. Even her vision was failing her - the four silver rings on the centre of the steering wheel became eight, then four, then eight again. Both her brain and it's 'transport' as Sherlock would call it, were failing her in some kind of protest against their poor treatment.

Concentrating as hard as her stressed and tired self would allow, she managed to pull over and turn off the ignition. One wheel was on the curb, but it didn't matter - she no longer had to be in charge of a vehicle. At the moment, she felt like she barely had control over her own body.

The more the windows misted up and the more rain that fell on the windscreen, the more agitated Faylinn became. She felt trapped. Trapped by the car. Trapped by London. Trapped by the men wearing suits and frowns that told her she couldn't do her job properly.

Flinging open the door, she stepped out in to the typical English weather. It didn't take long to determine that she was a few streets away from her brother's flat. She hadn't heard from him since he mysteriously asked for help getting in to Iran. A complicated system of pacts and favours prevented her from asking why - something about a woman? It wasn't ideal, but it was better than crying in a wet and dingy side street.

* * *

John Watson did not know that the man he shared a flat with had a sister. But there she was - standing on the doorstep, looking appalling. Obviously, he could never say such a thing. Not only was it rude, but he would then have to live in fear of Sherlock poisoning him (again). The violin music continued to waft down the stairs as the pair stood either side of the threshold, looking at each other.

"So... do you think I could come in?" The man in the jumper, who she assumed to be John, had now been staring at her for a solid minute. "I just need to use your bathroom..." She was now tired of waiting and stepped past the doctor.

"Yes, yes sorry. Er... Just upstairs. On the left."

Faylinn needed no more invitation and was climbing the stairs before John had even managed to finish his directions.

Without another word, she jogged along the corridor, slamming the door behind her before turning to look past her dripping wet fringe and in to the mirror. At least the bathroom was quiet. Outside, London was still littered with noise that seemed inescapable.

Down the hall, she could hear two muffled voices, presumably John was confronting Sherlock about the fact he had a relative that he previously failed to mention.

She had only set foot in 221b Baker Street on one other occasion, but it somehow felt safe. Perhaps it was some kind of sentiment or her mind connecting Sherlock with security. She anchored herself to the floor by gripping the edge of the sink. Feeling less exposed, she took a moment to try to lower her pulse rate.

When her attempts were unsuccessful, she started to panic. Thoughts of the enquiry and Mycroft's inevitable disappointment were like joke birthday candles - every time she blew the flame away, it popped up again, stronger than before.

Salty pearls escaped from underneath her eyelids and rolled down her already wet cheeks. This was not how it worked - emotions were not meant to dominate. Head over heart, not the other way around. Only now, neither were dong a particularly good job. All that her internal voice could tell her was to panic - that she had lost control. Everything else was just a mess of words and feelings she couldn't quite understand.

Standing up no longer felt like a viable option. She allowed herself to sink to the floor, with her back against the tiled wall. It had been a long time since the room had spun at such an acute angle.

John peered over his newspaper for the third time. He stared over at his flatmate, who was sitting at the desk, expecting some kind of movement. It had been almost twenty minutes now - how long could a relative stranger be left alone in the bathroom for? This was pushing it now.

He closed the paper, disregarding it at his feet. He coughed, earning not even a flinch from his flatmate.

"Sherlock?" He stood up. "Sherlock!"

"Hmmm" His response was almost groggy, as if he had been roused from a deep sleep. John spoke through gritted teeth- slightly angry, but the house guest prevented him from raising his voice.

"What are you going to do about..." Quite unsure about how to refer to the newly exposed sibling, he simply flicked his eyes towards the door. Unfortunately, this was rather lost on the detective. Ironic, really.

Sherlock squinted his eyes. "I'm sorry, what?"

"You know!" He made the same gesture again, making a point of overemphasising it this time; he couldn't help but feel like he was in a bloody pantomime. Or possibly playing the world's worst game of charades. Knowing that the other man simply wasn't getting it, he decided to spell it out instead. "Your sister is the room next door and has been for the last twenty minutes. I'm waiting for you to do something."

"Oh. Ooooh." He paused, looking past John in to the corner of the room. "Don't worry about her, I'm sure everything's fine." He returned to his reading.

"No. No, that's incorrect Sherlock. At least go and knock on the door, check she's not drowned or something."

"If you're so concerned why don't you go?" This time, Sherlock refused to even lift his gaze from the words on the page.

"BECAUSE SHE'S YOUR BLOODY SISTER." So much for not arousing suspicion.

The volume of John's voice came as a surprise to both of them - they were suspended, staring each other down. After a few seconds, Sherlock eventually relented and propelled his legs up in to the air before striding across the room and heading down the corridor. He threw a questioning look in John's direction before he made his exit.

There was a knock at the door.

"Faylinn?" He took the lack of answer as an invitation and opened the door very slightly. "John said I needed to come and check on you because you've been in here for a wh-"

He finally stopped as he saw the guest sprawled out in the corner. Panicked eyes gave him a look he knew too well (to tell him to _shut up_ ). All of a sudden, the awkward posture he had adopted softened and he fell in to place. The fact that at least one person in the room knew what to do meant the wave of nausea creeping over Faylinn retreated slightly.

He knelt down slowly, as if trying not to startle a wild animal. The inner workings of the human brain - all the chemicals rushing around, the electric signals relaying from one place to another - was familiar to Sherlock. Lord knows he had dissected enough cerebrums in his time. Solving this intricately emotional matter therefore quickly became a scientific process.

"You need to breathe slowly and deeply. Hyperventilation results in decreased carbon dioxide levels in the blood - it is expired faster than it is produced by the body. This results in the rise of the blood's pH level. This in turn causes blood vessels to constrict, which then slows down oxygen transport into various body parts, including the brain." He returned back to the room. His eyes had glazed over as he reeled off the definition that was for some reason made readily available by his Mind Palace.

There it was again: the _please_ _shut up_ face. Uncomfortable already, he manoeuvred his long legs so that he could sit down. Faylinn, meanwhile, retreated even further in to her own little world by pulling her knees up to her chin, leaving her face almost completely covered. Nevertheless, Sherlock did not fail to notice the trails of tears curling across her cheeks. He allowed silence to fill the room while he weighed up his next move; all this used to come so naturally to him. When did he lose his touch?

"I will sit here for as long as it takes."

He spoke again. "Listen to me. No one in this world will think any less of you because of this. Do you understand?" A small nod was delivered in his direction, still from behind a shield of her hands. It gave him some confidence that at least some of his words were going in. The rise and fall of her chest began to slow; Sherlock was now content that crisis had been averted.

After several long minutes, a small murmur escaped from the woman in the corner. It was so quiet that even Sherlock had to give himself a few seconds to piece it together.

"I don't want to talk about it." She sniffled.

He nodded, despite the fact his sister had no way of seeing this approval.

The stillness of the room could not have been more different from the inside of their heads. Faylinn's mind jumped from one scenario to another - it was busy, but not particularly panic stricken - Sherlock had that effect without exerting any effort at all. The elder was desperately rummaging around the cluttered desks and drawers and desktops that constituted his Mind Palace, scrounging for a useful or meaningful memory. His escalating desperation and disappointment in himself was bought to a halt when he felt her head on his shoulder.

He didn't have the heart to move her - he didn't want to. Wordlessly, they sat on the tiled floor, listening to the rain hit the window in a satisfyingly consistent pattern.

Once again, Sherlock was the first to speak.

"Should I put the kettle on?"

 **Thank you to everyone who has followed/favourited so far - I would love to know what you think! The next chapter will be up this time next week.**


	4. Deadly Weapons and Brotherly Love

Sherlock opened his wallet to find that it was distinctly... empty. With no other option, he took out a bank card and slotted it in to the machine. The cab ride seemed pretty expensive, but rather unusually, Sherlock didn't see it fit to complain too much - he was, after all, carrying a harpoon and several taxis had passed him by on Baker Street - instead he muttered under his breath whilst jabbing the four digits on the keypad. He was half in, half out of the cab, with his latest toy tucked under his arm. Of course, he was impatient, so when the machine took fractionally longer than normal to complete the payment he started to tap his foot on the tarmac.

 **Unable to complete transaction.**

He had to double take when the error message appeared. Exasperated (and more than used to having any necessary funding at his disposal) he pushed the card further in to the slot. A lot of mumbling followed; why don't things just _work_?

The driver suggested that he tried again, only to be met with a death stare usually reserved for those idiots who don't stand to the right on escalators. Just as Sherlock began to consider snapping the bloody thing and using the harpoon to its full advantage, an arm was extended over his shoulder. The leather glove attached to the end of it held a crisp twenty pound note.

"Keep the change." The familiar voice diverted Sherlock's rage way from the small plastic gadget and towards its owner.

"What are you doing here?" Sherlock dropped his hands and turned so that he was staring directly in to the eyes of his brother. Mycroft took the opportunity to inspect his eyes, along with the bags underneath them. Everything seemed to be in order. They squared up to each other for a few seconds. The younger was quickly reminded of his awkward position by a call from the driver seat, strongly infected with cockney, that asked him whether he was 'in or out'. As soon as the detective chose the latter and slammed the door (a small protest because of the inflated price tag of the journey) the car sped away.

"I could ask you the very same thing." said the elder, eyeing up the tall and frightfully pointy instrument in Sherlock's hand.

"It's for a case." Came the reply, as if it was an adequate justification for carrying around a weapon. Sherlock brushed past Mycroft and towards the old industrial units behind him. He fixed his collar to complete what had apparently become his 'trademark look'. The affected tone with which Mycroft called after him made him stop.

"How is she?"

Sherlock spun around on the ball of his foot. "How do you think? Frankly, I'm surprised you need to ask seeing as you seem to have twenty four hour CCTV trained on the back of our heads." He went to walk off again, pleased with the fortitude of his statement. As ever, Mycroft seemed intent to outdo his little brother; he was not allowed to get away with assumptions like that.

"Yes, Sherlock, I do need to ask. I need to ask, I need to be here, because of your petty refusal to answer my calls. Both of you - do not think my anger is singularly directed at you - seem committed to the notion of keeping me out of the loop and I will not stand for it."

"So you're telling me that we are the ones at fault here? You don't think that you could have handled it slightly better yourself? There is a reason she came to me, Mycroft. The same reason she always has done." The younger edged closer to the elder. He could feel a need for violence in his blood, coursing through his veins, yet he somehow refrained. His fingers curled in to fists of their own accord. They were now around six feet apart.

Mycroft visibly tensed as he heard the final sentence - he stood taller and lifted his chin in an attempt to illustrate that he would not be backing down.

"I do not wish to talk business with her. I was contacting her in a familial capacity. Please let her know."

With that, Mycroft chose to walk away. Years of practise told Sherlock that the last word belonged to his brother, no matter how much his audacity warranted response. As he turned to continue with the original plan, he scowled up on hearing his brother's shout:

"Don't worry, the cab is on me."

* * *

She woke up wrapped in a knot of blankets and at a very strange angle in relation to the position of the bed. Wiping the sleep away from her eyes, she turned to check the bedside clock. 8:23. The most sleep she had had in weeks.

Still cloaked in tatty midnight blue throw, she emerged from the dark bedroom and in to the sun lit hallway, which was currently boasting the smell of bacon. John was clearly awake, then. He was humming to himself as he made breakfast. All of a sudden, she felt conscious of the fact that she was a guest in someone else's house. Even worse, she was wearing a periodic table t-shirt that Sherlock had dug out for her (apparently a present from the lab technician at Bart's) and a blanket cape. A quick glance in the mirror confirmed her suspicions about appearing to have been dragged through a hedge backwards. She sighed, returning back to the bedroom to retrieve yesterday's screwed up work clothes from the corner of her brother's bedroom. After throwing them on, she couldn't help but grin at the thought of actually being in Sherlock's room. To think - the old 'KEEP OUT' sign decorated with skulls and crossbones had been enough to deter her from crossing the threshold for years.

Faylinn returned to the living room looking at least a little more presentable, if nothing else. The cape remained, however, as her blouse was still slightly damp after last night's torrential downpour. The doctor had now turned on breakfast television, the noise masking her second attempt at an entrance.

"Morning." She turned on her best smile as John turned to greet her.

"Good morning." He mirrored her half-smile. Faylinn immediately noticed that it never travelled to eyes. She let her own mouth drop as soon as she was alone in the room - John had now journeyed to the kitchen to make her breakfast. Was this how Sherlock lived now? Waking up to a cheery flatmate who offered you toast? It was unclear whether she was meant to be suspicious of or grateful for John Watson.

Faylinn hovered uselessly while the kettle boiled. Desperately trying to collect the scattered utensils and discarded teabags from the worktop, John tried to initiate a conversation.

"They said it's going to be a nice day today."

"They're usually wrong." She mumbled. The woman didn't look up as she flicked through a pile of papers on the desk.

"Hmmm." John didn't seem to know how to react to that; it seemed like a very 'Sherlock' response. "Do you take sugar?"

"No...No thank you."

They smiled at each other as John delivered the drink. Faylinn returned to her sniff around what she assumed to be Sherlock's work files, scanning everything before returning it to its exact original place. Her host cleared his throat, drawing her attention away for a second: he was staring directly at her. Oooo. He was clearly very protective then. Perhaps that was why Sherlock kept him hanging around. Not only was he a helpful boost to the ego with the blog, but he seemed to act as a guard dog too. How quaint.

Silence reigned as they stared at each other, only broken by John offering his guest breakfast. She politely refused. Expecting questioning and even possibly a lecture, she aimed to divert the conversation.

"Where is he?"

"Oh, Sherlock? He had already gone out before I got up this morning. I would imagine it's case related - he was up well in to the early hours last night experimenting and well..." He looked at her, almost as though he couldn't quite believe she was real. "You know what he's like, I suppose, once he's got his mind set on something it can't wait."

Faylinn's only reply was a nod. Surveying the room, she wasn't sure if what John had said was true anymore. _'You know what he's like'._ She could once claim to have been the closest person in the world to her brother; a world expert in the field of Sherlock Holmes. Not anymore. Not now he had a proper home, a flatmate and perhaps most surprisingly, a best friend. Recognisably the same, yet so different.

Steam rose from the top of her teacup as she sipped away at the caramel liquid. The warmth flooded into her chest, melting away all the tension in her shoulders and allowing her to sink back in to the soft cushions of the sofa. This is what she'd really missed in America - a proper cup of tea.

John seemed determined to not let the weak and ailing conversation die so continued to limp onwards. Faylinn pretended not to notice as he continued to look at her as though she was some kind of mythical creature.

"There's _three_ of you. I still can't get over it."

"You must have had one hell of a childhood, with two brothers like Sherlock and Mycroft." He laughed to himself, ensuring that his remark was received with good jest. He looked over to her, having to turn his body slightly to get a good view, but still not able to miss the twinkle of sorrow that flashed behind the blue of her eyes. She forced yet another smile.

"Yeah, you could say that."

John seemed to want more than that; he eyed her expectantly. Faylinn had no further comment, however, unable to move past whatever snag her mind had become caught on. She stared at nothing in particular, almost forgetting about her surroundings.

"Your mum must have had her hands full."

Even after all those years, she still felt it - that twinge of pain in her ribs. She swallowed and shuffled in her seat. John didn't seem to know, but really that wasn't at all surprising. If Sherlock had neglected to mention one whole sibling, then why would he have been willing to excavate the deepest and most delicate points of his past? The loss of their mother didn't necessarily need to be a secret, but it had somehow evolved in to one over the years. Faylinn had often considered this process, but it had taken a meeting with John Watson to make her realise that all this time, they had been lacking someone worth telling. As the dull stab of sadness subsided, nostalgia replaced it. _Indeed, her mother's hands were full, but she seemed to relish the challenge._ _She never got angry when they all squabbled in the back seat of the car, when Sherlock fed the cheque book to the dog or even that time when Mycroft 'accidentally' locked him in the shed. She was always proud, even when she didn't understand the completed experiment or the new theory. She was kind hearted and that was what each of her children needed her to be._

Still smiling to herself, Faylinn realised that nothing had been said for a while. The doctor appeared to be looking at her again.

"Do you have any siblings?" That seemed like something normal to ask. Of course, she couldn't help but already know the answer; his phone and a small scribbled line on the calendar was enough to tell her he had a sister. Older, probably. She knew well enough what it was like to be the youngest and there was something about John that told her he knew too.

"Yes." His grip on the handle of the now empty mug suddenly became tighter. "Yeah. I have a sister. I don't see much of her, mind."

He didn't seem sorry about that. Faylinn concluded that the conversation had now met it's natural end, so rose from her seat and shed her cloak. John had clearly thought the same and had his laptop closed on his knee, ready to work. After folding the blanket and placing it on the arm of the sofa with a firm pat, she took her cup and rinsed it in the sink. She wanted to make a move, but hesitated. It felt strange not to have an office to report to. Downstairs, the door was heard slamming shut. John sat up straighter - the cursor blinked in front of him as he listened for the footsteps approaching up the seventeen steps.

The door was flung open.

"That was tedious." John took one look at him.

"You went on the tube like that?!" The stench wrinkled his nose. This statement had aroused the guest's curiosity, as she crossed the kitchen and poked her head around the corner. The sight that she was met with was one that the average person would have been shocked, even horrified by. She knew to expect it. He stood in the doorway, crimson from head to toe. The blood covered his clothes, his shoes, his skin and had somehow glued his fringe to his forehead. When she emerged, Sherlock's head snapped towards her.

"None of the cabs would take me."

With that, he took his spear and left, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. He could be heard stamping down the hall and swearing under his breath after a loud bang.

"I hope you don't mind..." she said. John looked up at her. "...but I'm definitely going to want to hear the story behind that."

She fell backwards on to the sofa, for once content to stay put.

 **I hope you enjoyed it! I'm personally not too sure about this particular chapter, so I'd love to hear what you think? Constructive criticism is always welcome.**

 **Thank you for reading, favouriting and following - it means a lot.**


	5. Paperwork and Stolen Goods

"Will that be all sir?"

"Yes, yes. Go home, get some rest." He waved her away. Of course, Anthea would not be leaving. She had never, not in eight years, shut down her computer before Mycroft had even left the building.

The door swung shut behind his assistant and finally, for the first time since he had stepped out of his front door that morning, he was alone.

He cleared the flotsam of the day from his desk; even the beating heart of the British Government had to fill in forms occasionally. The windows on his computer screen were also closed. Whilst Mycroft's job could not be constrained to the boundaries of daylight hours, it was could be hidden from view for a few precious moments with just a few clicks of a mouse. He took comfort from that fact.

An email pinged through to his phone. The attachment was of particular interest - a plan of St Bartholomew's Hospital. Smiling, he saved the file and thanked a God he didn't believe in for his discreet contacts over at Richmond House. They had saved him a nights work, after all.

* * *

Sherlock hadn't driven in years, thanks to the virtues of the London Transport Network, but it hadn't taken long to dig some instructions out of the Mind Palace. Keeping his hands busy made it easier to think and the journey less boring. Plus, his brain now had something to focus on besides a desperation for cigarettes.

John hadn't minded that his flatmate volunteered to drive. His brutal and sporadic use of the accelerator left something to be desired, but it was easier not to argue. John did mind however - and was quick to voice his concern - when Sherlock tried to text whilst speeding down the winding Exmoor roads.

A scuffle ensued: one which caused the Land Rover to venture on to the grass verge at the side of the road more than once. Despite being charged with controlling a two tonne four by four, Sherlock emerged from the childish game victorious. In protest, John folded his arms and returned to admiring the view; he was regretful of the fact that such a sinister case had bought them to this part of the world. The open emerald moors verging on spring and the craggy hills blanketed the industrial blemish on the landscape they were headed for.

Sherlock, learning the irony of his being a detective and constantly breaking the law, decided to compromise with his passenger and use the hands free setting in the car. Begrudgingly, he selected the contact 'FH' .

"Faylinn." He spoke before she could, blurting out the word with a smirk as soon as the ringing tone finished. He took particular joy in knowing that he was responsible for ruining her lie in (of all the Holmes siblings, the youngest was most fond of her bed).

She sighed in to the handset, knowing immediately who would be hearing it on the other side. Her voice was croaky and full of sleep.

"What?"

"Good morning to you too." Sherlock replied, mustering up an impressive amount of fictitious cheeriness. Although he attempted to hide it with the back of his hand, John smiled too. He almost felt as though he shouldn't be an intruder on this conversation, but what alternative was there? He had never had to resort to using his training on how to jump out of a moving vehicle and didn't intend to break that particular record now.

A crackling sound filled the car - Faylinn was taking the phone away from her ear. Sherlock took less than a second to register this development and reacted by bellowing.

"No, Wait, don't hang up!"

The line went quiet once more, leaving Sherlock to assume that he was welcome to talk.

"I need you to check some records for me. Do you have a pen handy?"

"I'll remember." She was quick to reply, slightly offended by the notion that she might forget, even though she had only just managed to ascertain that she wasn't dreaming. She wiped the sleep from her eyes, blinking away the clouds.

"Right. They shoul-" He was promptly interrupted, since Faylinn had learnt to brighten up quickly.

"Sherlock, have you seen the clearance card recently?" She sounded distracted, as if only half interested in the conversation. Sherlock knew that she had turned on the television. The recognisably bland tones of a BBC Newsreader could be heard, giving their conversation an extra muffled soundtrack. This frustrated him perhaps more than he would ever admit - why wouldn't she just focus on the matter in hand?

"I have, funnily enough. It is sitting in my coat pocket as we speak. Now can we jus-"

"What? It was meant to be my turn!" The revelation tore her attention away from the tangle of the tickertape. Clear as day, John could hear the Sherlock in her tone; it amazed him that such intellectual giants could be reduced to children so easily.

"Faylinn, last time you had it a parking space miraculously materialised six feet from your flat on one of the busiest streets in central London. Coincidence? I think not. I am simply doing my duty in stopping you from wreaking havoc with an access all areas pass and the fact that you even had to ask where it was just proves my point - you really should be more careful, leaving things like that lying around."

"It was in my purse." She spoke through gritted teeth. Upon learning this, the man in the passenger seat stared at his companion in disbelief. Living with him was like living with sodding Fagin.

"Exactly, lying around."

She swiped the grin off his face by terminating the call.

* * *

 _Days later_

One word was etched, chalked, mirrored across the wall. If Mycroft had been honest, he would have admitted to being unnerved by it. But then again, those occupying positions in the shadow of government were not renowned for telling the truth. He decided to allow it to blur in to insignificance, choosing instead to focus on the man in front of him: the man responsible for the chilling interior decor.

James Moriarty.

His eyes were small - possibly because of the brash light that was inescapable in the otherwise grey room, possibly because of this wish to neutralise any emotion that threatened his stony exterior. Mycroft squinted in return, as if searching for a new angle. Another stick with which to poke the sleeping dragon. Unperturbed by the hollow glare that he was faced with, he sifted, very quickly and systematically, through the possible next steps for these fruitless negotiations. Negotiations, because both wanted information; this was not the usual 'keep hounding them until they spill' type operation. Each body - each mind - at the table was an asset to the other. It had to be dealt with in bubble wrap, hopping from one island of safety to the next. Like a in game of chess, each move was to be measured and repeatedly recalculated.

He deemed that the time had come. The proverbial wheels were to be set in motion. Never once dropping eye contact, clasping his chin with his long fingers, Mycroft called to the guard conspicuously tucked in to the corner.

"Let him go."

He sat solid, never flinching as the self proclaimed 'Consulting Criminal' was whisked away out of his sight. Their eyes held each other until he was pulled unceremoniously out of view. Mycroft felt a sudden urge to reach out and yank the grin clean off his face, but he remained there nonetheless, in the disgustingly uncomfortable fold up chair that had become strangely familiar to him over the past few days, weeks even.

Uttering those three monosyllabic words had made everything feel real. The humid air hung low around him, making his skin itch.

He glanced around him, once again considering the scrawl coating every flat surface in the concrete box. The word was one very familiar to him. One he had spelled out more times than he dared acknowledge, one he had said aloud countless times (whether in a brief moment of exasperation or pride). However, the man it referred to was not the centre of his attention in that exact moment. Instead Mycroft gave a thought to a second name, equally as important as the one that blanketed the room: Faylinn.

Sherlock, his dear brother, was the individual at the centre of the fight, but at least he was aware of the opposition - the youngest sibling had no such luck. Mycroft could only hope that he had made the right choices on her behalf.

 **I hope you enjoyed it! A bit of a shorter one this time but I will be making up for it by posting sometime in the week too :)**

 **I would love to know what you think of this - would you like to see more canon related chapters? At the moment I intend for Faylinn to be skirting around the edges of the canon and then for an original storyline to develop but would you guys like to see her in the middle of a case, for example? I am incredibly open to suggestions.**

 **Thanks for reading!**


	6. Cigarettes and Communication Problems

Sent: Tuesday, 15th June 02:27

 **Mrs S is in Ldn this weekend. Are you willing to commit to an engagement? -F**

Sent: Wednesday, 16th June 16:03

 **...Well?**

Sent: Wednesday, 16th June 16:04

 **If I didn't know you any better then I'd say you were ignoring me...**

Sent: Friday, 18th June 23:56

 **Never mind. I'll say you're not interested.**

Sherlock looked around the flat, noticing for the first time that it had turned dark. He reached for his phone, which was awash with notifications, and learnt that it was, in fact, Saturday. Hmm.

As he unfolded his legs and sat up from his vantage point on the sofa, his muscles creaked and ached - a sure sign he was growing old. He made a mental note not to let Mycroft find out about that. His brother did not require any fuel for ridicule; it would go to his head.

His eyes flicked down the list of received emails and messages, helping to allay his fears of having missed an important case. Fortunately, most of them were mundane enough to be solved from the subject heading. A few required the rest of the email to be scanned, but the sum total of energy that needed to be expended on the task was close to zero.

He could then turn his attention to texts. The consulting detective made a point of providing his number to a very limited audience, so there was far fewer to contend with. Just one from John, who was grappling with Harry's antics in Bristol, or wherever else she had ended up this time. He sounded very fussy. No change there then. He seemingly wasn't getting much sleep, either. Faylinn's were the only other messages of interest.

Despite often being mocked by John for his lack of understanding of 'feelings' and 'emotions', Sherlock was not oblivious to the disappointment lying behind the most recent text.

He got up from the settee, leaving an imprint behind, and made a b-line for the kettle. After flicking the switch, he contemplated a reply. The cursor blinked unhelpfully back at him as the kettle shook behind him and eventually clicked off, allowing for a break in attempts at familial communication.

* * *

"Hello Dear!" Faylinn was absorbed in to the arms of her old housekeeper before she even had time to reply. The greeting had been shouted so loudly over the incoming travellers that the whole of Marylebone station seemed to be gawping at Faylinn's increasingly coloured cheeks. She eventually freed herself from the steely grip of the surprisingly strong older woman and waited for the inevitable inspection. Her features were surveyed one by one. Experience told her to plaster on a smile, relax her shoulders and widen her eyes. The faithful recipe was a success, as she was released without further comment.

London rain - always to be expected, no matter now deceptively blue the sky - had set in. Umbrellas went up and cagoule clad tourists scurried indoors to shelter from the typical British weather. At least they're getting the proper experience, Faylinn thought, as she nodded along to the rhythm of Mrs Scott's ramble regarding the seating arrangements on her train.

"Where are you staying?" Faylinn probed. She was making a half-hearted attempt at digging the conversation out of the hole that the bumbling housekeeper had created.

She was handed a note with a perfectly copied address on it. The calligraphy was something to be admired - evidence to suggest Mrs Scott had never lost her trademark attention to detail. The hotel on the paper was _incredibly_ expensive. The haunt of visiting heads of state and famous businessmen, writers, academics. Definitely Mycroft's doing.

"Mycroft arranged it, very kind of him." Yep, there it was.

Faylinn wanted to reply, very specifically through gritted teeth to that remark. Mycroft had not spent so much money on accommodation out of the kindness of his own heart (that was actually in very short supply). The eldest had recently bailed out of entertaining beloved Mrs Scott. Something about meetings. He had been very specific about his alternative arrangements, giving Faylinn reason to be suspicious. As Sherlock was so fond of saying, only lies have detail.

"Hmm." The youngest Holmes frowned and pocketed the directions as she climbed in to a cab with her companion. Through the process of elimination, she had been forced to assume the role of host and as much as she loved Mrs S, she wasn't too happy about the set up.

Small talk filled the journey across north London.

"You should cut your hair, love." Mrs Scott made distracted comments as she stared out of the window.

"I had it done last week, actually." Faylinn replied. The older lady looked at her again. She tilted her head to the side, as if trying to find the best angle, searching for more data to make the final verdict.

"Did you?" She allowed a pause to punctuate the conversation as her attention was snatched by some sort of protest on the side of the road. She soon carried on when the traffic light turned green. "You should wear it short. It would suit you more. The lady who does my hair could do it for you if you'd like. She's ever so good."

She smiled, trying not to laugh. A raise of the eyebrow was added for effect. "Thanks, Mrs S. I'll keep that in mind."

She carried the small overnight bag up to the hotel room, which was honestly, bigger than her flat. Faylinn made a mental note to read up on the price list for this place. A concierge, who had followed the two women to the second floor, was adamant that they needed to be fussed over. Mrs Scott would have allowed him to exhibit the numerous features of the room for the remainder of the evening (the Jacuzzi bath, the mini bar, the television that required the operator to have a degree in computer science and the complementary confectionery) but Faylinn was quick to shoo him away. Content that Mrs Scott was settled, she politely bowed out, promising to meet her before their dinner reservation at The Ivy. Funnily enough, that particular arrangement was also Mycroft's doing.

* * *

Faylinn was satisfied to see that she had turned a few heads as she walked in to the restaurant. Unfortunately, all of the heads were incredibly middle aged - not that she would have pursued any claims anyway, but it was always nice to know that she still had it. With her guest in tow, she approached the manager.

"Hi. Table for two under the name of Holmes?" He scanned the list.

"Holmes? One of your party has already arrived. Let me show you to your table."

Faylinn was about to protest about the mistake that had clearly been made on the part of the staff, until she rounded the corner and saw a familiar head of black curls.

From behind the professional host, the younger Holmes revealed her scowl to her brother. Sherlock glanced up from the menu, directing a flicker of confusion towards the taller, younger woman and standing to attention for the woman behind her. He reluctantly opened his arms to welcome Mrs Scott, leaving Faylinn with an obscured view. This dinner was his first trip outside of Baker Street for days and the fact that he had even scanned the leather bound menu told her everything she needed to know about his calorie intake during the past 72 hours. His collar, plum purple and ironed by a skilled hand, was ever so slightly turned up on the back of his neck. This suggested that not only had Sherlock left the flat in a hurry, but he had done so alone. She trusted that John Watson would have picked up on such a detail. The impulse to correct it made her hands tremble, from the tip of her index finger to her tiny wrist. Anchoring them to her side with the use of excess dress material, she gave Sherlock one last subliminal search. Mycroft would be asking for some evidenced conclusions soon and it was best to be prepared.

The detective received his inspection, just as Faylinn had done hours before. From her seat, she ticked off the well known checklist: relaxed shoulders, big 'television' smile and wide eyes. He was released, apparently having passed.

With Mrs Scott now studying the wine list beside her, Faylinn was able to have a hushed conversation with her older brother.

"Qu'est-ce que tu fais là?" she hissed.

"Que voulez -vous dire? J'ai été invité!" Sherlock replied, adapting to the sudden lingual change with an enviable ease.

"Oui, mais vous n'avez pas accepté!"

Stalemate reached, the two returned to the pleasantries of dinner. Their contributions were minimal - simply questions to refuel the long monologues of their housekeeper. Sherlock received a rather brutal kick in the shin, owing to his reaction to Mrs Scott's description of Mycroft as 'very busy and important'. Of course, he had to respond with his own jab under the table. This trend continued until desert arrived.

Once the bill was argued over and settled, a cab was found for Mrs Scott and Sherlock was prevented from exposing an affair, the siblings found themselves on the pavement, simultaneously lighting a cigarette.

"I thought you'd quit." Faylinn ventured, flicking ash away with a manicured fingernail.

"I could say the same to you." He spoke around the fag, shooting her a sideways glance. The two smokers were forced together by a stag party that bulldozed the pavement with its loud chants and flailing, drunken limbs. Faylinn leant against the wall, Sherlock facing her but refusing to look her in the eye. The flicker of his pupils told a story, however, revealing that he was fulfilling the same task that she had taken on earlier. The woman sighed, having assumed that Mycroft had taken her word for it when she assured him she was 'absolutely fine'.

Stamping out his cigarette, Sherlock looked set to leave. Orders from the British Government had not arrived, something which had irked him - why was he considered to be more high risk than the little sister who had recently been made unemployed? He took it upon himself to weigh her up.

She looked... sad. Amongst other things. The detective considered his options, knowing that he was not renowned for his tact or empathy. Cold wind stained her cheeks, blossoming as she distractedly watched the blur of the city go by. Cabs crowned with lights, all of which could potentially excuse him from this situation, were allowed to continue on their way towards Covent Garden. Baker Street beckoned, but the calls of home and his dressing gown were still feeble enough to be resisted.

"Got anything on, at the moment?" he asked tentatively, referring to the mobile that Faylinn was now typing on. She sighed.

"Nothing important."

"That exciting, really?"

He forced a smile, hoping that the sentiment would be reflected back. It was not. She simply looked up from the blue screen, staring at him with a mixture of pity, expectation and confusion. Sherlock shifted his weight on to one foot, struggling to read such a cocktail of emotions so quickly. His sister waited for him to continue, forcing him to forge on.

"Is everything... you know... okay?" Sherlock prompted.

With an unexpected smirk and an over-exaggerated eye roll (usually reserved for the other brother) she pushed off from the wall with her foot. Sherlock instinctively lurched backwards, maintaining the distance between himself and his sibling. He relaxed once again, content that there was no real potent threat in the vicinity. Faylinn had not finished however, as she took the two strides necessary to square up to the man. Within a few seconds, her hand had seized Sherlock's iPhone, which she gripped tightly and broke in to a run. Perplexed noises stemming from over her shoulder made her snigger. A new burst of speed was necessary as her brother caught on to the game; his Oxford shoes tapped on the concrete rhythmically behind her. It felt freeing to run. The wind roared in her ears and formed tears in the corner of her eyes. Strides getting longer - sprinting now - she started to search for a diversion. A small alley on her left seemed adequate.

Without giving away her intentions a moment too soon, she swerved in to the tiny cobbled side street, stopping as soon as she was out of Sherlock's view. To taunt him, Faylinn held the phone out at arm's length, signalling her position as she did so.

The device was whisked from her grasp as Sherlock ran past her, evidently unable to stop in time. A creased brow questioned her actions, but all she was able to do in response was to puff out her cheeks. Regaining her composure, she held her hip, drawing in as much air as possible through slightly parted lips. Sherlock, too, seemed to be struggling with the sudden burst of exercise, as he folded and placed his palms on his knee caps. The heavy breathing continued for a few seconds, until the two unintentionally made eye contact. The gasping then suddenly descended in to laughter - uncontrollable laughter that Sherlock attempted to shield with his hand. Faylinn's nose wrinkled as she giggled.

"What the hell was that for?" The detective asked, finally able to form a question in between dying chuckles.

"Listening to you talk was becoming painful," she gibed, "I had to think of something that would shut you up!"

 **Sorry. I'm not really sure that there was any point to that. I just had the idea running around in my head for a while. I hope you liked it!**

 **Also I do not, by any stretch of the imagination, claim to speak French (I did what I could with Google and an old French dictionary) so feel free to correct me.**

 **Thank you to those of you who have reviewed, favourited and followed!**


	7. Code Breaking and Familiar Faces

**Warning: This chapter contains some strong language.**

'BOFFIN SHERLOCK SOLVES ANOTHER'

A random GCHQ underling delivered the usual stack of newspapers to her office, presenting her with a coffee before scuttling back out of the glass door. That one was always nervous. How charming. It was nice to know that she was capable of striking fear in to their quaint little hearts without so much as lifting a finger.

This was the third time in a matter of months that Sherlock's face had been splattered all over the tabloids. He looked miserable, but then again, some sort of despair was always scribbled over his features - especially when decent cases were thin on the ground. Faylinn deduced where that man had been kept days before Sherlock had even been drafted in... she just didn't have the time nor the energy to actually go out and do the 'legwork'. Shuddering because of her own laziness, she realised the extent to which her inner monologue now sounded like Mycroft and not the Sherlock of old. Maybe that's what growing up meant.

Faylinn surveyed the open plan offices from her elevated vantage point - she always felt like a mother protecting her chicks. Or, depending on which mood she found herself in, sometimes more like a hawk circling her prey.

It did not escape her notice that her boss was meandering through the jigsaw of office furniture - a war path mapped out directly to her door. _Shit._ She scrambled, binning all evidence of her Starbucks order, pulling up a spreadsheet and arming herself with a big smile. Very few men could make Faylinn Holmes panic and her boss, the head of intelligence, was one of them. All the others were comfortably tucked within her family tree.

He poked his head round the door, brow furrowed.

"Holmes. My office, 5 minutes."

"Yes sir." She courteously replied, despite the fact the door had slammed shut.

A quick mental search for the cause of such an urgent summoning of the troops returned no results. Eager, if nothing else, to be back in the loop where she belonged, Faylinn grabbed her phone and jacket. She quickly locked her computer and moved the keyboard and mouse mat to align them (another very Mycroft thing to do). With a deep breath for good measure, she swung open the office door and strode out in to the warzone.

She joined her opposite number with a raised eyebrow as they waited for the bald and heavyset man to finish his phone call. Judging by his facial expressions, the person receiving his wrath wasn't saying the right things.

The receiver slammed down in to the cradle with a crunch. Again, the two cryptographers shared a glance and winced; whatever was coming wasn't going to be pretty.

"Holmes, Wickham." He addressed them individually, but seemed to be more interested in the space above their heads, "We have a situation. And a bloody big one at that." He ran his palm over his face - the first time this man had ever been witnessed showing any sign of stress.

"There has been a break in." The pause gave his employees some room to question him, even if it was just with their eyebrows. He continued nonetheless, "Multiple break ins, all happening simultaneously. The first at the Tower of London, then Pentonville, then to top it all off the Bank of England. An unnamed male has been taken in to custody - handed himself in apparently. Nothing taken... but that is of little importance to me because the integrity of this organisation has been wiped clean from under our feet. " The final sentence was shouted. He jabbed the desk with his index finger, as if his point needed more emphasis.

Three files had been thrown across the desk; Faylinn chose the one labelled 'Bank'. Ollie too leant forward to retrieve the one closest to him. Flicking through the papers, she was unable to process any real detail, instead choosing to focus on the man mountain sitting just three feet away.

"I want two things. One, for the clean up to start immediately. That means firewalls up, all Government lines secured etc. Two - and this is the really fucking important one so you better be listening carefully - I want an explanation as to how a civilian strolled in to the Tower of bloody London and caught the British Security Service with its arse hanging out of its trousers. Is that understood?"

They nodded in unison. From beside her, Ollie's 'yes sir' came out as a sort of whimper. Their boss loomed over them and with one more stab of the table, he returned to his seat.

"Right then, it'll be less than half an hour before I have the BBC on that line asking for a statement. I want something of substance to say to them. Get to it."

Oliver Wickham bounced up off the chair, doing his best to restrain himself from pouncing on the door handle. Faylinn, remembering to grab the third file, followed suit. The manilla folders safely tucked under her arm, she power walked down the corridor to catch up with her colleague, propelled by a new pair of Louboutin heels. A heavy exhale through puffed cheeks told her that he felt the same way she did.

A quick glimpse over at the papers he was reading whilst navigating the maze made Faylinn double take. In fact, she found herself clawing at his shoulders in order to bring him to a halt. He looked back at her, with worn features that said 'this better be good'.

"What do you say I take this one?"

More confusion.

"I mean..." she tailed off slightly, asking herself where she was heading with this train of thought. "you've covered for me way too many times this month. I owe you one. Plus your hacks presumably already have their hands tied. You know me, pen and paper, the old fashioned way. I'm happy to do it, it's no problem, honestly." She curled her hair around her glass finger, fluttering her eyelashes for maximum effect. Had anyone ever had to flirt this hard to get more work thrown at them before?

A grin edged on to Ollie's cheeks, his brown eyes lit up. Faylinn reciprocated his smile to close the deal.

"If you're sure?" Bloody hell. Did he need any more convincing? Was this him being polite for the first time since...well, ever? "Cheers Holmes. Hey, maybe I should thank you over a drink tonight?"

With his hand on her waist, he stepped forward, leaving just inches between their torsos. Rather disgustingly, he bit his lips whilst looking solemnly in to her eyes. He smelt of nauseating aftershave and black coffee with sugar. Faylinn allowed him to stay there a few seconds longer than any other self-respecting feminist would do because, bless him, he really thought he had a chance. She swatted his paw away as it crept away from her waist. Never losing eye contact, she leant backwards and held out her hand expectantly. The missing piece was deposited in to it.

She was left in the hallway without so much as another word.

Up on return to her home turf, Faylinn barked orders at the most competent of her minions and locked herself in her office.

The first thing to be done was to close the blinds - everything in this damn building is made of glass. Then, after scrubbing the whiteboard to rid of the doodled equations, she opened the booklet and for the first time, examined the photo that the whole charade had been for.

Moriarty, although not a man that she had had the misfortune of meeting, was immediately recognisable. He wasn't lacking his usual flair - CCTV had him caught dancing to his own personal symphony, a series of stills creating a clumsy flipbook. A selection of these pictures were blutacked to the board. One in particular, hidden at the end of the pile, stopped her in her tracks: 'GET SHERLOCK'. She folded it neatly in to four, before shoving it in to the top drawer of her desk. Personal connections could be investigated later - no doubt the other two siblings had a head start.

A quick scan of the remaining red tape was enough to prove her suspicions to be correct. The whole thing had a distinct whiff of the Consulting Criminal about it. Unwilling to allow this extra layer of intrigue to cloud her judgement, Faylinn took a closer look that her source.

 _One click of a button and he was in. How was that possible? It shouldn't have been possible._

Shrugging off her jacket, she collapsed in to the computer chair, pulling up all the details available to her regarding the systems of the three supposedly 'untouchable' institutions. There seemed to be no obvious, gaping holes that would have left them open to infiltration. All of the security mechanisms were regularly tested and generally up to date. Everything was in order.

Except of course, it wasn't.

Faylinn scanned the code, despite knowing this was not her speciality. Computers, to her, had corrupted the art of cryptography - she was no longer just required to do maths, but also to speak the language of technology.

She fired off an email to Ollie, crafting her words to give his ego as little scope to grow as possible. It contained no filler words, just all the essentials he would need to catch the gist of her findings.

His reply filtered through five minutes later, startling Faylinn who was in the middle of scanning a list of the security software used over at Tower Hill. His feedback carried very little substance - the most notable thing about his message was that it ended with a 'winky face'. The abhorrent sentiment behind this vile misuse of punctuation made her physically wince.

Having exhausted her only immediate source of technological insight, Faylinn returned to relying on her own brain power (a policy that had failed her very few times in the past). On scrap pieces of paper, she sketched out various tiny strings of computer code, trying to find something that could possibly act as a key to the most protected rooms in Britain.

News of slow progress strengthening the damaged firewalls eventually made it through to her glass tank of an office; the woman had found it really rather amusing to look up from her desk and watch the worker bees argue over which of them would be the one to disturb their queen at work. The chosen one had stumbled and stuttered as he delivered the message and looked extremely relived to be exiting the office once he had finished. She smiled at him as he retreated quickly.

Faylinn's final interaction with her colleagues for the morning was a succinct phone call to the press and communications department - not a number she regularly dialled - to request that they draft a statement. "Something woolly and impossibly vague."

 **Lots of OCs, I know. Please let me know what you think!**

 **Thank you again to everyone who has been reviewing, favouriting and following :)**


	8. After Hours and A Hostage Situation

Sherlock did not resist as he was slammed against the door of a police specification Vauxhall Astra. John was right - the whole of Scotland Yard had interrupted their evening to come and enjoy the show - he half considered charging them for the pleasure. He lifted his chin stoically, staring straight ahead, past the whirling blue light that seemed determined to blind him.

He wondered where Moriarty's cameras might be hidden. It was a shame that he was handcuffed, he could have given them a wave (or possibly even a finger). Maybe he should start crying? It would certainly add to the drama. According to John, the Great British public were lovers of a sob story. His brother would have no doubt scolded him for not taking the situation more seriously, but this was Moriarty's game, and Sherlock didn't want to ruin it by not playing along.

Not yet, anyway...

The reflection in the car window provided an albeit distorted view of the door to 221 being opened. Sherlock was forced to look again when he saw John Watson stepping over the threshold. To his left, a number of Lestrade's colleagues fussed over the Chief Superintendent, who appeared to be bleeding from the nose. Seeing the glint of the handcuffs, it didn't take the detective long to piece the evidence together. John was manoeuvred so that once again, the flatmates were side by side. Sherlock noted the comparative gentleness with which John was handled. Hmm. He would have dwelled on that, had he not been the subject of a criminal investigation.

"Joining me?" His steely expression cracked to reveal an amused, perhaps even proud smile.

"Yeah. Apparently it's against the law to chin a Chief Superintendent."

The armed officers behind them, with almost comic timing, secured the cuff on Sherlock's wrist to the one on John's. The former did not even blink whilst they did so, as if the fact that he was incapacitated was of little significance. He turned his attention away from his accomplice and towards his surroundings once more. This time, however, he mapped out not the cameras but the bodies on the street. The freedom of the city was only a temporary thing - if he was going to make use of it anytime soon, then he needed information. Content with his research, the taller man visibly relaxed, stooping slightly to not only alleviate the pain of the metal chaffing at his wrist, but also to bring himself closer to John's ear.

"Bit awkward this, isn't it? Sherlock spoke nonchalantly to his flatmate.

"Huh. No-one to bail us." replied John. He always managed to keep up the rhythm of the conversation, even if he had very little idea about the path it was being steered down.

"I was thinking more about our imminent and daring escape."

Sherlock had no time to revel in the questioning look he received - apparently a regular fixture on the good doctor's features. Instead, he lurched for the small hand-held radio on the dash of the car they leant against. His timing was, of course, perfect as a squeal sent the two policemen behind them in to a momentary paralysis of thought. In one swift motion, Sherlock grabbed the pistol from the officer behind him. With less delicacy that John might have hoped for (but would have been foolish to expect) Sherlock raised the gun above his head, forcing the shorter man on to his tiptoes. He held it up like a trophy, his pale slight fingers comfortable around the trigger. When confusion reigned, the man holding the weapon naturally took control:

"Ladies and Gentlemen, will you all please get on your knees?" Sherlock yelled. Much to his dismay, no one dived to the floor. Good manners cost nothing, but perhaps in this instance they had hindered, rather than helped his cause. Time to step up the terror level. He waved the gun about in the air - an action in keeping with his usual disregard for firearm safety - before shooting upwards in to the night sky.

"Now! Would be good!"

Sherlock made eye contact with Lestrade for the first time, his eyes simultaneously apologising, begging for some help and some time, displaying a wildness that confirmed his threats were not empty ones. A short pause followed, as the police officers calculated their next move. He felt his phone vibrate in his trouser pocket, John must have felt it too, as he was peering down at their thighs in a very puzzled manor. Sherlock largely ignored it - whatever, whoever it was could surely wait.

"Do as he says!" His whole body sighed. The Detective Inspector motioned towards the tarmac, never taking his eyes off his two mates. Mates that had just well and truly sold him down the river. He watched, desperately trying to ignore the damp patches that were steadily growing on the knees of his trousers. Sherlock made further declarations, evidently formulated to protect John, and with that, he was gone. Lestrade climbed to his feet and reached out to Sally, who shooed him away automatically. She seemed disgusted by the thought of being helped to her feet. He was sorry he ever asked.

Greg's attempts at being chivalrous were killed off as soon as his boss bellowed instructions from behind a bloodied nose.

"Get after him, Lestrade." Despite the fact he had been targeted by name, Greg was one of the last to scramble. He swallowed thickly, frozen in time as car engines started and florescent jackets raced past him. Sally, unsurprisingly, had already left his side. He felt the pull of his glove box, containing a first aid kit of cigarettes and Jaffa Cakes but the glare of the chief acted as a shove in the direction of the fugitives. If they ever come back, then they owe me a pint, he thought. Straightening the lapels on his coat, he set off in a light jog. The boss wanted to see that he was a competent officer, so Greg acted like one - at the end of the day, he had a mortgage to pay. That had to come before saving the skin of a certain curly haired detective.

Their strides fell in to sync, Sherlock noted, listening to the pleasing pulse of their footsteps. John, on the other hand, had no time for such novelties, as he tried to concentrate on breathing. How was a man that barely slept and survived solely on fresh air and tea fitter than he was? The detective had jumped that fence like a stag and now he was hardly breaking a sweat. No doubt it was some kind of Holmes superpower.

The buzz of the mobile pressed against the top of Sherlock's leg made him falter, interrupting the previously established rhythm. Sherlock condemned the impatience of the texter. Unable to do anything about the technological inconvenience, he gritted his teeth and sped up, dragging John behind him with flailing limbs and heavy, laboured breaths.

* * *

Faylinn's features were illuminated only by the glow from her laptop screen. Sleep was tempting her, the calm and tranquillity of suspended unconsciousness irresistible. Her coffee cup had been drained for at least half an hour, but she reached for it anyway, a nervous twitch and a force of habit. She rubbed her eyes, regretting for the first time not wearing glasses. The office beyond the window, which had been long since vacated, now drifted in and out of focus. The dark shapes and shadow were still recognisable, though. This was a very familiar view.

She reviewed her work, even though mistakes were unlikely and her brain was slowly shutting down. Her phone sat dead, motionless beside her. Sherlock Holmes always demanded textual communications but such preferences could only be observed if they were returned. Faylinn didn't mind how he got in to contact - hell, he could send her a carrier pigeon for all she cared - but no reply at all was unacceptable. Did he not understand that she was helping? That she had made a breakthrough? That she had sacrificed evening after evening for his little game?

Upon realising that she had managed to implant her nails in to the desk, Faylinn allowed herself to sink in to the computer chair. Finding a ridiculous last minute spur of energy, she decided that someone would have to answer her calls. She selected Sherlock ('Miss Marple') on her contact list.

beep. "William Sherlock Scott Holmes I hope for your sake that you have been a) kidnapped b) maimed or c) killed because if not then will take it upon myself to do all of those things in a very painful and professional manner. Understand? You have ten minutes to call me. Ok, bye." beep.

For a brief moment, she considered Mycroft. The man in the suit with the umbrella was good for some things (including acting as Faylinn's next of kin on medical forms and unwittingly providing access to 'hush hush' government buildings) but an unspoken rule prevented her from dialling his number. She couldn't put her finger on the exact moment when the air between her brothers turned stale. Maybe that was the point - the malignant relationship had been so enduring that it had no traceable beginning, and no foreseeable conclusion. It was just there - part of the furniture.

She blinked in to space, shocked at her own train of thought, like hearing a recording of a very drunken voice and then being told that it belongs to you. She'd never considered her warring siblings in such a way before. Sleep deprivation clearly had an unexpected side effect of sentimentality.

The decision was an easy one. This was Sherlock's war and whilst Mycroft would be more than likely drafted in to clean up the mess, it was not her place to invite him to fight on their brother's behalf. Mycroft was pencilled in as the very last resort.

Faylinn felt her whole body sway forwards - her eyelids felt heavy. So did her hands. And her arms. And her head.

"Holmes!" he shouted. Oliver's face poked smugly through the gap in the door. He apparently found great amusement in waking her, as his grin was not filled with spite but instead with a childlike joy. Faylinn, who had snapped to attention upon hearing her name, rolled her eyes. Her forehead hit the wood of the desk, missing the keyboard of the government issue laptop by less than an inch. She spoke in to the solid, glossy surface, not caring that her mumbles were virtually incomprehensible. He was a cryptographer after all; if he couldn't work it out then he might as well clear his desk.

"What time is it?"

The question was asked in such a way that Oliver Wickham was forced to remind himself that he was, in fact, in the heart of the British Security Service, and not on the floor of one of his best mates living rooms on a sweaty, hung-over Sunday morning. He stifled a laugh, whilst being careful not to slam the door behind him. Approaching the body sprawled over the table top, the man flicked back the sleeve of his suit jacket and read his watch.

"Twenty past seven. I'm in early for the meeting with China. What's your excuse?" He looked down at his colleague as he finished the question, unsure as to whether or not he should be expecting a reply. Faylinn had not yet removed her face from the furniture. A sharp pain flew up the back of her neck as she shifted slightly in her seat. Deciding not to exacerbate the pain in her joints, the youngest Holmes rose slowly in one fluent movement. Her vision would not behave, forcing her to hold her mobile at an impossible angle in order to check for messages. She found none. At least, none from the person that mattered.

The face that she had woken up to was now bearing down on her expectantly. She would not be pressured in to towing his line of conversation, however. The Holmes family had a fine tradition of rejecting the principle of small talk...

"Could you..." Faylinn's manners rushed in to revive the request with a distinct lack of punctuality, the word seemed laboured as it escaped her "... please ... give me a lift to the train station?"

"What? Where're you off?"

The woman had already propelled her black leather chair backwards and was now making a half hearted attempt at brushing the creases out of her blouse. With an amount of energy that would have seemed impossible sixty seconds ago, she bounced to her feet. She only answered once she had arrived at the coat stand in the corner of the 'tank', grabbing her trench and scarf.

"London. I need to deliver a message." She turned around, receiving the confused expression she had fully expected. "Personally."

With that, she left, Ollie following like a bewildered puppy.

Faylinn didn't feel bad. He hadn't said no, anyway.

 **I hope you enjoyed it! Exams are over now (praise the Lord!) so I can really crack on with the writing. Please review to let me know what you think...**


	9. A Big Breakthrough and A Small Favour

He was kind of aware that he had followed her through the maze of corridors, past security and then reception and in to the car park, but he wasn't really sure that he'd done it of his own volition. It had just sort of... happened.

Faylinn didn't even stop to consult him when they emerged in to the open air. The pink and orange hues of sunrise were slowly beginning to penetrate the inky morning sky. She headed straight to his car without anything in the way of consultation. By the time he had shaken off the trance, she was stood impatiently holding the glossy red handle of the passenger door; he clicked it open and extended his gait to climb in next to her.

Fastening her seat belt, the younger woman began to look around her as if she didn't quite know how she had arrived there. Ollie knew the feeling. She prodded the empty food wrappers and screwed up receipts in the cup holders to her right. Her disapproval was clear - her love of order and dislike of clutter was reflected in everything she did, whereas Ollie simply seemed to endeavour to see through his mess. The horror did not go unnoticed, as Ollie smiled in to his rear view mirror and swung the hatchback out of the parking space. He sped out of the complex, heading down the drive at a speed way above the 5 miles per hour that was indicated by the signs. His passenger did not see it fit to complain, however, for she was known for her 'speed limits are a suggestion and not a requirement' mantra.

"I don't approve of your choice of vehicle." The clamours and growls of the engine had forced her to speak up, striving for the rhythm of the usual blunt comments that were common currency between them.

"That's not what they normally say." The accompanying raise of an eyebrow disgusted her more than the empty Snickers wrapper at her feet, but the remark was so ridiculous, so comparable to the catchphrase of a washed up American sitcom character, that she snorted nonetheless. He had considered adding a quip about the backseat, but his words hadn't quite found their order quickly enough. Plus, the warning look he was receiving was enough to seal his lips for good.

As they finally joined the main road, the driver glanced over to find that Faylinn's attention had now honed in on his music collection. He wasn't surprised to learn that she didn't approve of that, either.

"You could have walked, you know." He made an effort to paint his words with enough sarcasm to ensure that neither his ego nor his car were harmed further - he didn't need to take his eyes off the road to know that he was receiving a death stare. Heat could almost be felt from it, radiating on to his left arm. "Why aren't you driving anyway? Your Audi was on the car park wasn't it?"

Relenting her finessed and trademark scowl, Faylinn turned so that she could face him without craning her neck. She sprung in to action, as if he had finally been intelligent enough to justify speaking to. He was finally asking the right questions and her attention was a reward.

"I need to run something past you." she announced. Red traffic lights allowed Ollie to glance over at the papers that had now materialised on her lap.

"Holmes, isn't that the Moriarty case? The break ins?" The end of his sentences flicked up in pitch to ask a question, despite already knowing the answer. "You shouldn't be working on that - we were told not to touch it after the trial. Were you not reassigned?"

"I'm not working on it. Not officially, anyway." Faylinn replied. This time, it was the man who was wearing an expression of disbelief. In response, she quickly leapt to her own defence.

"You're not telling me that you didn't find it odd? That all of those people unanimously voted to set him free when he quite literally preformed daylight robbery? Surely it is obvious even to you that he rigged the jury."

Ollie decided not to take offense at the 'even to you' part of her statement (he had slowly been beaten in to submission by the younger woman - you had to pick your battles carefully). Instead, he nodded in concession to her point. She may have gone to the obsessive lengths of a dishevelled, retired police officer in a crime drama but she did at least have a point.

"Right. So, when he was found not guilty we had to suddenly step away, leaving a potentially lethal hole in the security of the whole bloody country. Again, odd - why were we never allowed to finish the job? There had to be a way of finding out how he did it. It never seemed to add up. He did it all from his iPhone with the touch of a button and yet it would have taken one of my lot a few hours to code anything that would even touch the protection on one of those places. Scotland Yard never released the phone to us, which I find frankly unbelievable; we could have been having this conversation weeks ago if they had. I've done a lot of modelling and again, nothing fits. To cut a long story short, there is no code. There can't be."

He turned to face her, somehow having forgotten about the road in front of him. She watched as the cogs turned behind his eyes and he fitted the pieces of the jigsaw back together.

"It's all here - read it if you must." she added, concerned that the driver had failed to face the direction of travel again, but equally anxious that her methodology was being questioned.

Watching the barrier to the car park rise in front of them, both seemed to decide that the conversation would not be revived. Joggers, clad in neon jackets, squinted at the tinted glass as the car and it's driver were unable to decide whether or not they would park by the curb. With her hand hovering over the door handle, Faylinn tried to inspire some urgency with in her colleague. Very little could be found, unfortunately.

"I... I'll have a look... You might well be on to something."

Content that she had dragged relative praise out of a man who was known for his inability to be complimentary unless a) under duress or b) trying to, in his own words, 'pull', she stepped on to the pavement. Slamming the door, she called out a thank you behind her.

The carriage was empty, allowing her free choice of the window seats. Carefully placed looks meant that the seat next to hers remained empty as more commuters and more emails flooded in (the 8am watershed had been passed). Whilst fending off a man in a cheap suit with a momentary scowl, Faylinn initially ignored the text that buzzed through.

 **Please call John. I need him to leave. Tell him to go to Baker Street. Urgent 9. NQA.**

 **-SH**

Her brother's text made her pause, picking at her thumb nail; his request sounded almost pleading. The final three letters of the message prevented her from asking why the task had been bestowed upon her. 'No Questions Asked' meant that it fitted somewhere in the matrix of complicated favours and services that had been mapped out between the three siblings over the years. She felt that after almost two years in South America, she had fallen behind.

A mobile number that she didn't recognise fell in quickly behind the first text, so after making her way to the end of the carriage, she called it. It rang three times, allowing enough time for the butterflies to rise in her stomach and for a slight shift in her tone of voice. Faylinn was fully confident in her ability to lie - after all, she had learnt from the very best.

"Hello, is that Mr John Watson?" She asked, smiling cordially as a lanky teenager emerged from the toilet, "Yes. This is Sarah. I'm a paramedic. I've been asked to inform you that there has been an incident involving your landlady, Martha Hudson."

He pressed her, squeezing out details that she had not prepared.

"Unfortunately, Ms Hudson has sustained a gunshot wound, sh-"

She could hear the panic rising in John's voice. It proved to be useful - it forced her to check the pitch of her own.

"Please do not panic, Mr Watson. My colleagues are attending to her now. Is there any way you could meet us here in the next say, fifteen minutes? Are you in London?"

John hung up directly after answering the question. His urgency confirmed that her hoax had passed the test, leaving her to breathe a sigh of relief. She checked her messages on the way back to her seat, but found nothing from Sherlock. Not for the first time in the last few days, she felt completely out of the loop; all she could do was sit and wait to be delivered in to London.

Later, the flotsam from former rush hours could still be seen as she stepped off the platform and in to the entrance hall of Paddington station. She did not pause to consult the map and darted around confused tourists, heading straight for the exit and the taxi rank.

It was then she saw it - on Twitter, of all places - a blurry, shaky video in which a figure, complete with an unmistakable cape-like black coat billowing out in the cold wind, fell from a rooftop. Falling, falling. It hit her like a midwife's slap. The amateur camerawoman had failed to capture the landing, but even someone with a lesser knowledge of physics than Faylinn could have guessed how the story ended. Despite the evidence in front of her eyes, she scrambled to find the equations, the numbers that would make it okay, that would tell her it was all stunt and that he had survived. Her head spun. No one, not even the indestructible Sherlock Holmes could survive a fall from that height. Allowing her phone on fall on to the seat next to her, she clamped her hand to her mouth, suppressing the sobs and the screams and the swear words that were climbing up her throat. Tears did not arrive, but her eyes screwed as if willing them to.

The cab continued on its chosen course towards Baker Street. It was only when the car had pulled over, with its driver staring at her expectantly from the front seat that Faylinn managed to speak.

"Er erm sorry yes, could you take me to this address? Sorry." A business card was retrieved from her handbag after a quick, frantic search. The cabbie studied the address before sighing and removing the hand break.

Her breath was ragged and short. She reminded herself that she was not allowed to do that - not allowed to descend in to a state that she could not climb back out of. Closing her eyes to remove the distractions of London clamour proved to be futile. Stubbornly, her mind's eye clung to the only image that had not been blanketed in a haze of confusion, the only thing that could be seen with any real clarity. Falling, plunging, plummeting. Sherlock was gone.

He had jumped. He hadn't been pushed. She hadn't spotted the signs. She hadn't been able to stop him. In its frenzy, her brain told her that Mycroft could have: Mycroft could have stopped him.

 **A/N: Thank you to everyone who has been following/favouriting! Please review to let me know what you think...**


	10. Revenge and Revelations

**Warning: This chapter contains some strong language.**

The receptionist seemed rather shocked to see her, barrelling through the grand wooden doors and landing with a skid just inches away from the desk. Tears that had fallen during the cab ride over had dried, leaving a steely expression in their wake.

"I need to speak to Mycroft Holmes." Faylinn demanded, leaving no room for questioning or ambiguity. Her palm lay flat on the table top as she had decided that this format was less intimidating than a fist. Her wrath would be reserved for Mycroft and not taken out on a clueless bystander - even if she was a civil servant.

Despite the woman's best attempts to upkeep her 'customer service smile', Faylinn did not stray from the tangle of anger and sadness and frustration that was growing inside of her chest.

"No problem. Let me call his office for you now." Faylinn's fingers now drummed on the glossy wood surface. The rhythm became faster and louder as the woman narrowed her eyes in response to the words of whoever was on the other end of the line (presumably Anthea). The receptionist placed the receiver back down, not looking at the cradle but at her client.

"I'm sorry, but Mr Holmes is not available at the moment. If I could take your name and your number then his team can contact you to arrange a meeting?" Ah, Mycroft's power complex was evidently still going strong. She looked around to find that she had no one to share an eye roll and a knowing look with. The cryptographer failed to reply or give her contact details, as she was already surveying the foyer for an alternative. A man and a woman - a minister and his adviser - crossed the room and she recognised them immediately to be her free entry ticket. He was making some sort of joke. She laughed hollowly at it. Clearly after a promotion, then.

A blueprint already drawn in her mind, Faylinn thrust her hands in to the pockets of her long black trench coat, smiling innocently at the woman behind the desk. Any minute now. The clip of the unknown adviser's heel approached her, then passed her. Faylinn counted the strides with a slight nod of the head, as she would do if she was watching a horse being ridden towards a fence or trying to get to grips with a particularly challenging piece of piano music. In her pocket, the nail on her ring finger was slowly skewering the pad of her thumb. 5...4...3...2...1...

The click of the key fob was her cue. As the chatting work partnership marched through the doorway, she half walked, half jogged to catch the glass as it swung shut. The couple seemed not to notice. Or care. She squeezed past them on the narrow corridor, heels pounding like the heartbeat she could hear in her ears. There she was, strutting down the corridors of power - under different circumstances, Mycroft would be proud.

Anthea's desk was left abandoned, paperwork littered. Her handwritten notes trailed off midsentence.

Praying that her memory had not failed her (stumbling in to a store cupboard at this point would prove to be rather anti-climatic) she flung open the door.

"Can someone please tell me what the hell is going on?"

Anthea, a one woman cabal whispering in the government's ear, was first to react to the intrusion. She went in to auto pilot upon hearing the door handle click, moving her head from its position just inches away from Mycroft's, hair brushing against his temple and eyes laid on the same pixelated, low quality CCTV footage. She now stood three feet away from her boss' throne, just over his right shoulder.

Mycroft greeted the whirlwind of energy and rage that battered through the doorway with an archetypal level of contempt. His frown transferred seamlessly from the puzzling video on his monitor to his sister; his look was disapproving, but somehow knowing. He had been expecting her, apparently.

Waiting for the fight that the adrenaline rushing through her veins told her to expect, she breathed hard, body tensed, fingers curled in to fists. Her eyes flicked from Mycroft to Anthea and then back again. Mycroft seemed to translate the message immediately when he spoke over his shoulder.

"Could you excuse us for a moment?" He turned to face forwards again. "I have a matter I need to discuss with my darling sister."

The intentional placing of the word 'darling', not favoured at the best of times, only served to make her expression dirtier. This was something she was not afraid to show off to Anthea, who was scuttling across the room towards her. Faylinn was unmoving, using her own body as an obstacle, forcing the other woman to squeeze past her in the doorway. _Fucking civil servant._

Sighing under the weight of the day and the size of the frown that his sister was wearing, Mycroft beckoned her forwards.

"I suppose you'd better come in then."

Unusually obedient, Faylinn allowed the door to slam behind her. She did not, however, approach the desk as Mycroft has intended. She stood in the void between him and the door, treading the regal red rug and lurking in the shadow cast by the only light in the room (his angle poise lamp). The muffled altercation between Anthea and the building's security prevented a silence from blanketing the room. They listened, despite the fact that each word was indistinguishable from the next. Both weighed up their next move. Each individual calculation seemed to be completed simultaneously, as the siblings' words clashed in mid air. Realising the futility of continuing, both paused mid sentence.

Faylinn constructed the question Mycroft had been on the verge of asking, making the shapes with her lips but not permitting any sound to escape. His apathy simply fanned the flames, causing her to erupt.

"Do I know? Of course I bloody know. The whole fucking world knows." she exclaimed.

Upon hearing this, Mycroft administered a well known look, one telling her to _mind her language_. It was promptly ignored; Faylinn knew that the Rubicon had been crossed.

"And you let me find out via Twitter? Fucking _Twitter_. This is a new low Mycroft, even for you."

The government official rose from his chair and rounded his desk in a few brisk paces. He leant against the wood, fully aware that the fuse was lit and all he could do now was sit and watch the fireworks. Insults, well crafted but full to the brim with anger, initially bounced off his impenetrable facade; they all formed part of a lexicon he knew too well, all units of language that had passed Sherlock's lips at one point or another. They took on a new life when coming from her, however. The context meant that some found their way in to the rarely found chinks in his armour.

The stream of abuse continued. Sparks flew with every stamp of her feet, every ostentatious gesticulation. Whilst Mycroft was capable of portraying anger with a stern glance or a carefully placed phrase, his siblings were definitely dramatists. They shouted. They roared. As a bystander to this process, the eldest noted that the trait was something that Faylinn seemed to have acquired with age. Sherlock, on the other hand, was seemingly born with an ability to use the world as his own personal theatre. Having overcome the brief distraction of familial analysis, Mycroft chose a lull in her monologue in which to interject.

"If you could just let me explain, all will bec-" His conciliatory statement was soon drowned out by further shouts.

"You know what? I don't even want to hear it... You knew, Mycroft. You knew and you can't even deny it. You knew what he was going to do, that he was capable of doing it and you didn't stop him. You didn't stop him!"

 _I encouraged him_ , Mycroft thought. The final sentence, louder than anything that came before, made it clear that words would no longer be enough. She launched herself at him, throwing fists and palms and elbows in his direction. The force behind them was calculated as to not cause real damage, but his gut began to take harder and harder punches and he was forced to swerve an elbow to the face.

With reflexes that he assumed had been lost upon entering his fourth decade on earth, Mycroft grasped her right wrist. After a scramble and a kick, he held the left one too. His long, thin fingers and slightly clammy palms encircled her wrist bones easily. When she continued to fight, he crossed her arms over each other, holding them in front of her chest. Their eyes - both a cool shade of blue - were locked in a stalemate.

"I know it feels hopeless now, but soon enough -" He spoke quietly, in hope that her own volume would align itself with his. His endeavour was somewhat successful, but her tone remained to be bitter. Her nose wrinkled in contempt.

"Fuck off. You of all people are in no position to tell me about feelings." The pitch of her voice betrayed her before one more bid for escape. She shook her right hand violently, but nevertheless Mycroft's vice like grip ensured that freedom would not be obtained.

He swallowed thickly, the most powerful tool in his arsenal made ineffectual by the constant protests and interruptions. He considered his next move: could he tell her, or perhaps more importantly should he? Not for the first time, Mycroft had stumbled in to a completely unique situation, one for which no case studies or reference points could be found. Fortunately, the decision was taken out of his hands.

The elder, taller man saw him before she did. Mycroft visibly straightened, glancing at Sherlock just long enough to gain his consent. He had to be sure, because such a haphazard reveal had not been planned. Faylinn halted her protest, seeing the flick of his grey blue irises towards the darkened corner of the room. She turned on the ball of her foot, able to exploit Mycroft's momentary lapse in concentration. Their hands still did not detach, however, leaving the two siblings caught in a tangle of limbs.

There was silence. With Faylinn's arms and legs completely limp, Mycroft was now responsible for holding her upright as opposed to restraining her. He couldn't see her expression, but Sherlock was evidently trying to tackle it with a reassuring half smile.

"I think that's quite enough cat fighting for one day, don't you?" The inky haired detective chuckled, fracturing the brittle coldness between them. He stepped in to the puddle of light created by the small, utilitarian grey desk lamp.

"You bastard!" The phrase was not much more than a shriek, a slur fuelled both by anger and by disbelief. Having untied herself from Mycroft's grasp, she lurched forwards, repeating the scream, only to be reined back in by the eldest brother before her wrath could be expelled on a second human punch bag. She flung her weight around again, taunted by her fleeting taste of freedom and the amused smirk of the middle child.

He held her forearms as before, although this time he pinned them behind her back, cuffing her with his own pale fingers. He was careful to avoid the chunky watch she wore on her left wrist - a twenty first birthday present from himself and Sherlock, opened a week late upon return from Cambridge ( _Msc degrees and birthday celebrations are incompatible_ she had proclaimed). The sleeves of her trench coat collected in the nook of her elbows, her shoulders having escaped altogether, revealing the emerald green blouse underneath. Simultaneously smart and dishevelled.

Sherlock stepped forward, his hands held out in front of him as if to prove his innocence. This was a diplomatic move that had the potential to result in his imminent death (for real this time, judging by the fury burning Faylinn's cheeks). This was an unexpected complication; considering what his morning has consisted of, the world's only consulting detective had not expected to be fearful of his own little sister.

"Faylinn that is quite enough!" Mycroft commanded, shouting after suddenly realising the ridiculousness of the position he found himself in. After all, 'LAZARUS' had not yet been concluded. There were still obstacles regarding the body and the legal paperwork to be overcome. Knowing how stubborn each and every brain cell occupying the small dark office could potentially be, the eldest brother took matters in to his own hands. He could not afford to waste any more time.

"You have ten seconds before every single government document you have ever owned mysteriously becomes invalid. Your passport, your driving licence - everything. The same goes for your credit cards. Let me tell you, it'll be a long walk back to Cheltenham." The threat, purred in to her ear in a tone that indicated there would be no room for manoeuvre, made the wriggles and the stamping subside. No threat made by Mycroft Holmes was empty. "Now, when I let you go are you going to behave like an adult?"

She nodded, stoically avoiding looking at her remarkably 'not dead' sibling - instead, she chose to look at the ceiling. Her human handcuffs were eventually unlocked. Just for one second, Mycroft could have sworn that he saw Sherlock flinch. He had no reason to worry, however, as the youngest seemed to have regained the necessary discipline over her actions and was now restoring order to her outfit. Her brothers stared at her expectantly. Faylinn spoke in a measured way and the effort this required was evident on her shadowy, drained features.

"I'll ask again... Can someone please tell me what the hell is going on?"

 **A/N: Please review if you have time! Thank you for reading. I appreciate it a lot.**

 **I'm sorry this is a day late, but what with the trailer and all...**


	11. Flowers and Old Wounds

"You're going to have to cry."

"Why don't you cry?"

As soon as it escaped from Faylinn's mouth she regretted saying it - there was a time and place for her 8 year old spoilt brat hysterics and this was not it. Mycroft shot a short but piercing look in her direction from the seat next to her, having been sitting with his head in his hands for the past ten minutes.

"Because." He took a deep breath, evidently trying to contain his frustration. They locked eye contact and Faylinn automatically knew what was coming, it wasn't as if she hadn't heard it before. "I am at the heart of the British Government. I babysit the free world and if I am seen to cry, there is a distinct possibility that it might fall apart."

She wanted to laugh in his face, tell him he was being ridiculous and that he was as much of a drama queen as Sherlock ever was, but again, it didn't feel appropriate. Today was going to be a long one.

Settling for the traditional eye roll, the youngest turned to look out of the window. They sat in silence, Mycroft pondering the day's strange arrangements and Faylinn unable to tear her attention away from the raindrops racing each other down the glass. The rest of the journey passed with this reverent quietness - not awkward, but full of thought.

To her surprise, Mycroft instructed the driver to remain in the car upon their arrival. The self proclaimed 'glue holding together the western world' ducked under his faithful umbrella and before Faylinn could protest, had opened her car door and was offering her shelter from the driving rain.

"Are you ready?" he said.

She simply nodded. Trusting herself to speak didn't seem feasible in that particular moment; she needed the time to compose her thoughts.

The small and select congregation were already seated in the church. The siblings trotted up the cracked steps in front of the building to join the wooden box in the foyer. The lid remained firmly shut, obviously. Mycroft took the time to shake his umbrella dry and upon his return, he knew something was wrong: Faylinn's facial expression said it all. He looked at her questioningly and when she refused to meet his gaze, a light bulb suddenly glowed deep within his grey matter. It hit him in the gut too. Purple forget-me-nots crowned the oak. Delicate and sweet-smelling, they were immediately recognisable to two people who had spent their childhoods surrounded by them. They had been the flower of choice almost twenty years ago, in that very same church, when all three siblings had stood together behind them. Mycroft vowed to have someone clearing their desk by the end of the day (his rage fuelled rampage through the office that evening was inevitable).

Not allowing for any further reflection, the music started. It was something generic that Sherlock would have hated - still did hate - the tense in which to speak of her brother still presented a challenge for Faylinn. That was something that would have to be fixed quickly. She took a deep breath as the coffin bearers from the funeral home began the march down the mile-long isle. As they stood at the back of the church she scrutinised the room.

He'd hate that. And that. And that. _Especially_ that.

Both Holmes didn't dare look at the group that this whole charade had been constructed for, including Greg and Mrs Hudson. They were sat together with Molly Hooper, huddled as if shielding each other from the cold. In the pew in front of them, John Watson cut a rather sorrowful and lonesome figure. This was another blow for the members of the precession. Faylinn noticed that Mycroft had elected to focus on the royal blue carpet at his feet. She quickly followed suit.

The organ halted and Mycroft lead his sister to the seat that was on the opposite side of the isle to the good doctor. They gave polite nods to Mrs Scott and her husband. Upkeeping his image, the politician stared at the altar with an unreadable, steely expression.

Yet more painfully average hymns (which Faylinn's fingertips played from memory on the side of her thigh) and fumbling long speeches from the vicar followed. Faylinn intermittently threw a look towards John, who didn't seem to notice or care. He seemed to be biting incredibly hard on his bottom lip. She wondered if he too felt hostility towards Mycroft after being informed that the funeral arrangements were fully taken care of. Did he resent the generic melodies that filled the stone building, the prayers that held little to no relevance and the sad understanding attempted by the robed balding man reading them in the same way that she did? At least she could take comfort in the knowledge that Sherlock was alive and well, drinking all of Mycroft's tea and making a mess. John Watson could not be afforded such luxuries.

Mycroft's speech danced around the edges of nostalgia and sentimentality, but he was careful to keep his tone even and under control. He recalled light hearted stories, giving away only the titles, as if creating a flipbook or a film trailer of his brother's life. Childhood trips to Paris, cardboard pirate ships and from later life, phrases lifted straight out of a certain blog, including The Aluminium Crutch and The Six Thatchers. There were strategic and notable omissions: a black hole engulfed his early to mid twenties, the blatant jump from young to middle aged acting as further proof that Sherlock's adult life only officially begun when John Watson stumbled in to it. The cases the speaker had chosen, Faylinn also realised, were not the detective's most heroic or his most well known - they were the ones that had no known connection to Moriarty.

The eulogy concluded with a story from early life, one that Faylinn had never heard before.

"My brother, in his never ending quest to reach his professional and intellectual peak, often gave others reason to portray him as a cold, unloving machine. Despite my personal denouncement of sentiment, I would like to make it clear that this is not how I wish for him to be remembered. He deserves a better, a bigger legacy than that. Because, you see, Sherlock Holmes was a man who wanted always wanted to do the right thing. He wanted to help and to do his upmost to make a difference. His career choice of course reflects this, although I would like to illustrate his desire to please with a different tale. When he was five years old, Sherlock visited my bedroom in our family home. This was when teddy bears were the still best kind of sidekick and before he had learned to tame his famous black curls. He was a confident child, as I'm sure you can all imagine, so I naturally found his anxiousness concerning - he was worried that he would be unable to fulfil his new role as a big brother, worried that the skills required would not come to him naturally enough. Whilst the subsequent years have not been free of trials and tribulations, I think I can say with some certainty that his concerns were unfounded." He flashed a look at the woman in front of him, now alone in the front pew. "Sherlock has thrived as a big brother and, if I may speak for everyone else here today, he has thrived as a friend. Anyone permitted to enter his tight inner circle would be capable of recognising that. Sherlock Holmes certainly impacted up on every life he played a part in. I am incredibly proud to say that he enriched mine. "

The addition of 'friend' was clearly aimed at those on the left of the church and in particular, John Watson. Perhaps Mycroft had finally understood that extracting the doctor from the loop was unnecessarily cruel?

A handful of sentences embellished his point further. However, Faylinn found herself unable to focus on them; tributes like this would never be heard in Sherlock's presence, or indeed anywhere beyond the stained glass, stone and marble that constituted this place of worship. She was lost in the previous anecdote, for a moment breathing in the smell of the second bedroom on the very top floor of their country house, with the large bay window and the broken door handle. Imagining a pre-Faylinn Sherlock. The nostalgia made everything feel very real, as if the past was able to illuminate the present, pulling everything in to a sharp focus.

An ominous sting in her eyes forced her to look away. The eldest Holmes collected his notes from the lectern, the scuffling of creamy parchment deafening thanks to the outdated microphone. Faylinn shuffled along to allow him to sit down. Through this short, silent process, Mycroft was able to gain a closer view of her features. Two beads of water raced down her cheek. Giving her a reassuring look, he casually reached in to the breast pocket of his suit to retrieve a handkerchief, never once looking away from the flickering candle rested on the altar. She received it gratefully - it was a relief to know that she did not have to hear him gloat. Her tears had escaped not as a result of Mycroft's request, but because she had momentarily become convinced of her own lie. Method acting in the extreme.

Pulling herself together (the proximity to Mycroft made her back straighten and thankfully, the tears dissolve) she dutifully responded to the words of the vicar - expressions fell out of her lips and required no thought. This was a hangover from those childhood Sunday mornings spent in the village chapel.

It was a short walk to the burial site. Faylinn learnt that her brother had specifically requested a plot that was sheltered by an aging oak tree. As a so called 'chief mourner', she was forced to lead the procession, sandwiched between the coffin that was void of a body and a score of individuals that mourned for it. The eyes of friends, landladies, housekeepers and old schoolmates who pretended to be devastated bore down on her back. Until the prayers finally resumed at the grave side, ripping their attention away, the weight on her shoulders made it feel as though she was actually carrying the harvest oak box.

Faylinn simply wished to disappear. She blinked away images of herself jumping, plunging in to the damp muddy black hole that the mourners currently framed. She would slide down and away from prying eyes. The void, convenient and inviting, taunted her, no more than two steps away.

The youngest member of the Holmes family smiled weakly at Molly Hooper, after realising that her gaze had unwittingly fallen on the registrar. Perhaps predictably, Molly looked rather flustered as a result of this accidental arrangement. Staring at her polished pointed shoes quickly became the safest option available to Faylinn.

The staged funeral, the play without a rehearsal, was now entering its final act. The wake would follow. More acting. More unbearable sorrow. It was at this point that Faylinn envied her brother - even whilst squatting on Mycroft's sofa in his pyjamas, Sherlock was capable of bringing the world to its knees. How typical of him, to be too busy for his own funeral.

 **A/N: I hope you enjoyed it. I found this one rather difficult, but it was something I really wanted to do. I would really love to get your opinions on it...**

 **Thank you for reading!**


	12. Small Talk and Undeserved Sympathy

The courtyard was a joyless beast. Indeed, it was not where she would've chosen to while away this damp Thursday afternoon, but it was certainly an improvement upon the bespoke private hire room she had recently escaped from.

She had dutifully stood to attention next to Mycroft, receiving teary messages of condolence and shaking hands. The conga line of mourners quickly dissipated and made a b-line for the bar, freeing up Faylinn to turn her nose up at the buffet, reapply lipstick and find the nearest fire escape. As she left, she blatantly ignored Mycroft's non verbal plea for help - he was tied in to a conversation with a couple whom she didn't recognise (at least not from the back of their heads, although the cut of his suit had Oxbridge written all over it).

Her absence would go unnoticed; the gathering would churn along without her, behind her back. She didn't have a role to play there anyway. Her role was to be played here, off stage with an all too familiar shape between her index and middle finger.

Faylinn had faced what was perhaps her biggest challenge of the day so far when an extremely shaken Greg Lestrade had approached her outside the church. It had already taken a great deal of effort on Molly Hooper's part to convince the detective that he was welcome at the service and he was incredibly conscious about the possibility of over staying his welcome. It was for this reason that he had taken his leave before the wake. A real shame, as Faylinn could've done with a slightly less overbearing smoking partner.

"Come here, kiddo" Greg said, voice slightly hoarse as he pulled her in to a trademark bear hug. He had taken her by surprise, as up until this point most of the guests had simply floated around her, grey and black figures in outfits that had been pulled out of the depths of their wardrobes and dusted off especially for today. Greg was the first person to actually greet her, one of the few on the steps of the church that knew who she was.

She relaxed in to him as the intuition that told her to lash out and resist melted away. He'd lost weight, most likely because of the stress brought about by the threat of dismissal from the force, but even so he smothered her easily. There was a void in the space next to her shoulder, where traditionally Greg's police badge would be tucked in to his inside pocket. She also noted the loss of a small silver button that had been fashioned in to a keying - straight from the uniform of his grandfather, a present offered to him when he started work at The Yard. The suit he wore, once slightly too tight, was now a relaxed fit. He hadn't worn it for weeks. Even from within the envelope of his arms, it was easy to tell that he hadn't yet returned to work.

Finally having been released, she finally got a decent view of him. His forehead was more lined than she remembered and grey circles that almost touched his cheekbones told a story of endless sleepless nights. This was the face of a down trodden man. Was this something Mycroft and Sherlock had accounted for in their stupid little plan? Faylinn suspected that she knew the answer.

"Hey Greg. How are you?" Of course, the answer was clear before the copper even opened his mouth.

"Oh... you know. Just trying to muddle through, really. I... I just can't believe it. It doesn't feel real, does it?"

He swept his palm over his eyes then ran his fingers through his greying hair, which further contributed to his dishevelled look. Faylinn failed to come up with anything more than 'no'.

"Anyway, it's not about me, is it?" He paused to look her straight in the eye, grabbing the top of her arms with warm, reliable hands. "I'm so sorry, kid. After everything else... you don't deserve this. _No one_ deserves this."

Thankfully, Lestrade made it clear that he did not expect a reply. Instead, he pulled her in to a second hug. Faylinn wanted to push him away, tell him that he was the one that deserved to be absorbed in to a reassuring hug, not her. His situation was the one that warranted sympathy, not hers. But alas, she restrained herself and stuck to the script, accepting his solace and pity with a great deal of guilt.

She could relax when she was alone. Eyes on the pebble being propelled over the concrete by her patent heels, she pondered how many families had stood in this void, a secret oasis hidden from the city. Some would have smoked to remember their loved ones, others to forget their troubles. Faylinn couldn't decide which category would be preferable. The pomp and ceremony had placed her firmly in a reflective mood. The smoke was helping to shake off the 'what ifs', the 'maybes' brought about by her eldest brother's tribute.

Footsteps on gravel. Almost impossible to decipher. She estimated the height of their owner - just over six foot - and accounted for the likelihood of them carrying a cane.

As the man rounded the corner, she learnt that her senses had betrayed her. It was not a cane. It was an umbrella.

"Ah, sister mine. Fancy seeing you here."

Faylinn puffed her cheeks out. Predicting a lecture regarding the smoking, she made a pre-emptive move to lean against the Victorian red brick, allowing it to take her weight. Wide blue eyes stared up at him expectantly. Long dark lashes, which had proven their persuasive abilities since the age of thirteen, were wafted in his direction. Mycroft wasn't sure whether she knew she was pulling _that_ face.

He held her gaze, unfolding the claret and white package in his hand with the use of instinct as opposed to eyesight. He pulled out a cigarette and inverted it before replacing it back in to the tightly packed carton. Faylinn had seen this ritual preformed by both of her brothers, and simply assumed that it was a habit passed on from their father. A strange legacy, but a legacy nonetheless.

A mound of ash had formed in her right hand, leaving her to regret the waste. She flicked it to the floor as Mycroft finally lit up. The 'leader of the free world' had his back to her now, like a child shunned with nothing but the cracks in the plaster board for company. He cradled the flame in his hands, protecting it from the breeze.

They allowed themselves to bask in the quiet air that threatened rain. Clearly even Mycroft had exhausted his plentiful conversational reserves. It was hard to blame him. Faylinn's had begun to run dry hours previously.

She hesitated in selecting a second smoke, as this confined space didn't seem to have room for two intellectual egos. It was very much Mycroft's way to ruin the fun by digging out secret hideaways. The same had happened when she was just six, in the library at home, where she and Sherlock had gone unnoticed for almost forty eight hours. It was funny to think of that room now - even after everything that had happened, all the years that had passed, the Aladdin's cave was still tucked away behind it's secret doorway, unchanged and riddled with dust.

Unlike the man next to her, she was able to light up with just one flick of the lighter - a useful skill, but not exactly one that sat comfortably on her CV. Again, both were content and conversation seemed unnecessary. Their ears pricked immediately as two muffled voices grew closer, clearer.

"Hello?" Mrs Scott called around the corner.

Rabbits in headlights.

Spinning around to face the old woman, who had now stepped in to full view, Faylinn and Mycroft scrambled to hide their cigarettes behind their backs. She tried desperately to limit the guilt that threatened to blush her cheeks, hoping that Mycroft was doing the same. It wasn't lost on Faylinn that the British Government was scared of his old housekeeper.

Mrs Scott, who was joined by her silent husband, frowned at the siblings. The pink blemishes around her eyes confirmed that she was fully submerged in the falsehood, but they did not detract from her ability to command the space.

"Are you two smoking?"

"No!" Mycroft blurted.

"It was Mycroft!" The youngest held her breath, ensuring that ornate swirls of smoke would not give the game away.

Mrs Scott looked between them, suspicious but nevertheless happy to take the bait. Her husband stood behind her, nothing more than an obedient accessory; it was impossible to know what he was thinking as even after twenty five years, Faylinn was yet to see his facial expression change.

"Well, we're going to have to shoot off. We shall catch the next train home." She turned to look at Mr Scott, who nodded in confirmation. This gave Faylinn a vital window to release a small grey cloud from her lips. Both Holmeses visibly tensed as Mrs Scott approached them, inevitably expecting them to step in to her open arms. Faylinn took an automatic step back (societal _and_ familial rules be damned). This gesture was, rather amazingly, enough to deter the housekeeper, who settled in the no man's land between the siblings and her husband. Faylinn suspected that the 'trauma' of the day was what prevented her from asking questions, even if she recognised that something was out of place. They were excused from the usual inspections.

"I just wanted to say that if you need anything, anything at all, then all you need to do is ask. I've left some cake for you both inside. I think you need it - look at you, you're wasting away!" The youngest had to fight extremely hard not to smile at that. Behind her back, she clawed at her knuckles and bit the side of her mouth in an attempt to mollify her own anatomy. She could hear Sherlock's snigger from here.

Turning to make her exit, Mrs Scott fiddled with the lapels of her husband's suit jacket, matriarchal energy fizzing out and not allowing her to rest. They collected themselves.

"I really am sorry. Sherlock will be sorely missed." There were more prepared words to come, but her upper lip quivered; she looped her arm around Mr Scott's and squeezed it tight. Faylinn glanced towards Mycroft for reassurance of her own, feeling helpless in the face of such sorrow. After exchanging nods and brief understanding looks, the siblings were left alone once more.

"Remind me again why we invited all of these people?" Faylinn sighed.

"You don't invite people to a funeral, Faylinn. You simply inform them that the funeral will be taking place and they decide whether or not the wish to attend." He replied, recoiling slightly as he recognised the condescension in his tone. "Although I do agree with the sentiment behind your question." He corrected, making a shameless attempt at regaining favour. Ever since the scrap in his office, Mycroft had felt a responsibility to tiptoe around his baby sister. He had not expected her to feel so offended about her exclusion from LAZARUS, and felt a certain brotherly obligation to prevent the rift between them from widening further.

"When I die, feel free to just dump my body in the sea and be done with it." Faylinn added, eyes glazed over and clearly drowning in her own thoughts.

The corners of Mycroft's lips were teased upwards in remembrance. The young woman in front of him was, in fact, not the first person to have made that exact request in the past 24 hours. Sherlock had said the same thing, sitting on the littered floor of his living room, wafting newspaper around noisily as he was incapable of speaking without gesticulating. The eldest Holmes responded in the same way now as he had done then:

"Noted. Although, your request does require you to shuffle off this mortal coil before I do. Even with your tendency to go looking for trouble, that is statistically unlikely, is it not? Plus, you rank up there in the top two most stubborn people I know. It wouldn't surprise me if you were to cling to life in order to 'beat' me."

His sister smiled, recognising the truth in this statement.

"Well, just keep it in mind."

"Hmm. One funeral at a time, if you don't mind." Mycroft spoke in to the ground, hiding his face.

At this point, both cigarettes were long gone and it was clear that both were waiting to survey the other's next move. Neither wanted to take the plunge back in to the world of sympathy and mingling. The cryptographer had managed to avoid John Watson thus far and did not want to stumble in to his path at this late stage in the day. Even after working undercover for months, she still felt uncomfortable with this particular lie. It was too close to home. If she wasn't careful, it could consume her.

Upon finally reaching her hotel room, she collapsed back on to her bed, high heels almost puncturing the duvet. She let out a breathe that had seemingly been held all day. She was restless. Another soulless, clinically clean room that allowed her mind to stray and remember too much and run away with itself. Grabbing her coat from the armchair in the corner, she raced for the door, determined to get lost in a city she knew like the back of her hand.

 **I have reworked this chapter SO many times. It turned to be something very different to what I originally intended to write. I hope you enjoyed it nonetheless.**

 **Results day is almost upon us and I should imagine I will be doing a lot of writing to try and take my mind of it. Please do let me know if you have any prompts/feedback/questions.**

 **Thanks for reading!**


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